It had nothing to do with my software. It had to do with the fact that just
pressing the space bar on the sign button wasn't enough to sign the petition
as it is with every other petition that I sign. There were extra steps that
had to be taken to sign and I had no idea of this until Lloyd outlined the
steps. Then when I followed the steps, they didn't work the first few times
I did them. They did work eventually.
However, not everyone can afford to get the latest upgrades and not everyone
is capable of learning how to use them. Even the very skilled people need
help. That's why their are tech lists. So if a blindness advocacy group is
going to want blind people to sign a petition, one would think they would
have chosen an easier kind of petition to use like Change or the several
others that were mentioned. You are able to teach yourself these things. I'm
not. And there's no one available to teach me, nor do I have the money to
pay people to teach me every time I need to learn something new.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2016 9:17 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: more on NFB petition
I really don't see what the problem with signing that petition is. I did it
with no problem at all and I do not find the White House petitions site to
be lacking in accessibility. I can only guess that you might have outdated
software. My own software is not the very latest, but I still had no
problem. However, if you do not keep your software up to date you will find
more and more websites do not work for you and more and more other software
will not be compatible with the software you have. You have a responsibility
to yourself to keep your system up to date and if you shirk your
responsibilities to yourself then you can't claim that someone else who is
unaware of your letting your software getting out of date is discriminating
against you. Of course, there is the possibility that you cannot afford
updates to the software that is not free, but whether you can or not the
same thing is going to happen to you as your software gets further and
further out of date. Some of this may have to do with planned obsolescence
and some of it may have to do with new software being created and the makers
of the old software have to update their versions to be compatible and it
may have to do with new versions coming out to fight security holes. It is
that last one that is the usual excuse. But whatever the excuse it is a
problem that plagues all of us and that includes the NFB and any other
organization that might even think of posting a petition. Another possible
explanation for your having trouble signing that petition might be your own
computer skills. As a person who has had no formal computer training at all
and so has had to figure it all out on my own I have most certainly faced
that problem a lot. Many times I have tried to do something on the Internet
and found myself unable to do it. Then at a later time I learned something
new and realized that the problem was with my own limited knowledge. It is
my responsibility to learn though.
It is not the responsibility of any group who might circulate an on line
petition to teach me or to know exactly where I am lacking and make some
kind of accommodations for my ignorance. This is especially true if the
organization is using a ready made template on a petition site. Again, you
cannot claim that you are being discriminated against because you shirk your
responsibilities to yourself. As to why the NFB chose the White House
petition site for its petition, I can only guess. One reason might be that
the White House does specify a certain level of signatures that will trigger
a response while petitions on other sites can be more easily ignored and,
indeed, are ignored. You should have learned by now what with all the
petition signing that you do that the main purpose of these petitions is to
collect a contact list for requesting donations.
But if I have guessed correctly about why the NFB chose the White House
petition site they are still deluded. Just take a look at past petitions
that have gotten a response. The responses are just public relations
blather. They are intended to placate and never promise any action at all
unless the decision has already been made for other reasons. And that shows
what that petition site is there for. It is a public relations gimmick. It
is to give the citizenry the illusion that their government is listening to
them. You can sign all the on line petitions you want and if it makes you
feel good then go ahead and feel good. It doesn't result in good though. I
signed this one and I have signed a few others, but usually I don't. It is
wasted time.
On 1/20/2016 9:50 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
In my fourth attempt to sign the thing, and by then it was just a
personal challenge to me, I managed to do it following a set of
directions about the extra key strokes to use when you get to the sign
button. But even then, I had to do it over 3 times before it worked.
I wonder what the NFB leadership was thinking when they set this thing up.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz ;
Comcast
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2016 9:05 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: more on NFB petition
Points well taken.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2016 5:06 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] more on NFB petition
One of the more cynical list members wrote.
So far, only about 1500 people have signed this petition, and more
than 98,000 more signatures are required by Feb . 11. This is more
than the combined membership of all the blindness advocacy groups in
this country so it is unlikely that the 100,000 signature threshhold
will be met by the deadline, especially since this petition is not
very accessible to begin with.
They could have used Change or Move On or the other sites that lalow
you to do your own petition and that are easy for people to use. But
perhaps those websites are too liberal for NFB?
Miriam
