[nfbcs] YouTube Image Capture Accessibility

[Steve Jacobson]

Hi Marvin,

I wish I had answers for you but I don't, but I do have a lot of sympathy and I have shared your frustration.  In fact, I 
have quite often needed sighted assistance even when the audio CAPTCHA alternative was provided because it was 
so intentionally garbbled to avoid voice recognition software.  I was somewhat involved in the National Federation of the 
Blind's legal action to correct problems with the Target web site, and I also currently serve as the vice-president of the 
National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science.  We also have a Research and development Committee that tries 
to address problems upon which I serve.  I explain this only to make the point that I can speak firsthand of the 
frustrations we are all feeling in finding answers that we can swallow for various security aspects of accessing web sites, 
of which CAPTCHAs are one aspect.  The laws that we have here in the United States do not provide a strong enough 
lever to force changes to all web sites although we're working on that.  We have also struggled with finding alternatives 
to CAPTCHAs that would not in effect treat us as spammers, but the answers are not obvious.  Even audio CAPTCHAs 
are not a perfect solution because they do not work for persons who are deaf or have serious hearing loss.  

Most obvious solutions simply have too many holes in them.  Telephone staff alternatives are just not acceptable in my 
opinion because regardless of whatever is promised, staff gets reduced and response time is not considered important.  
We know that there are options that have not been adequately explored, such as offering description prompts for single 
words, but so much of what benefits us as blind persons in technology is also helping spammers and hackers.  

I guess all I am saying, Marvin, is that there a lot of us struggling with this problem and looking for answers.  We have 
seen a lot of progress with respect to information access, but we are also seeing some real challenges just now as well, 
and CAPTCHAs are one example.  Doing what you have done, making your feelings known to the site involved, is very 
useful even if not very satisfying.  Many developers just don't know we are out here and making them aware that we are 
increases the chances of better solutions in the future.  Thank you for doing that.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:20:03 +1100, Marvin Hunkin wrote:

>Hi.
>well that old chest nut again. tried to signup for youtube, but ran into the 
>image capture, and no alternative capture.
>so no sighted help around.
>and if i go to the youtube contact page, no e-mail, just look in the help 
>resources. well tried to signup a few months ago, and ran into the same 
>problem. and if i try to go to the help pages or resoucesresources, and try 
>to click on any thing, it comes up with the singup or login screen. so how 
>do i get around this and the only contact is the press at youtube.com, which i 
>sent a message asking them to redirect to the owners of this site and making 
>alternative capture possible for us blind people. so how did you get around 
>this problem. a lot of sites seem to have no alternative capture for us 
>blind people, who cannot see. now, did try firefox and web visum, but did 
>not work, tried several times, tried clicking on the image, and using alt 
>control 7 and got the web visum tool, but think i am logged in, or cannot 
>remember my password, did click on forgot password, but nothing happend. so, 
>how do i singup up, without getting very frustrated and not bother about 
>signup and missing out on trying to find my favorite start trek videos to 
>download and watch like star trek the next generation or voyager. so got any 
>suggestions?
>cheers Marvin.
>E-mail: startrekcafe at gmail.com
>MSN: sttartrekcafe at msn.com
>Skype: startrekcafe
>We Are The Borg! You Will Be Assimilated! Resistance Is Futile!
>Star Trek Voyager Episode 68 Scorpian Part One
>E-mail: startrekcafe at gmail.com
>MSN: sttartrekcafe at msn.com
>Skype: startrekcafe
>We Are The Borg! You Will Be Assimilated! Resistance Is Futile!
>Star Trek Voyager Episode 68 Scorpian Part One 



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