What do concern trolls and privileged people without visible or invisible disabilities who share or make content about accessibility on Linux being trash without contributing anything to projects have in common? They don’t actually really care about the group they’re defending; they just exploit these victims’ unfortunate situation to fuel hate against groups and projects actually trying to make the world a better place. I never thought I’d be this upset to a point I’d be writing an article about something this sensitive with a clickbait-y title. It’s simultaneously demotivating, unproductive, and infuriating. I’m here writing this post fully knowing that I could have been working on accessibility in GNOME, but really, I’m so tired of having my mood ruined because of privileged people spending at most 5 minutes to write erroneous posts and then pretending to be oblivious when confronted while it takes us 5 months of unpaid work to get a quarter of recognition, let alone acknowledgment, without accounting for the time “wasted” addressing these accusations. This is far from the first time, and it will certainly not be the last.
I think (hope?) I’ve praised their work elsewhere on other accounts, but no harm in doing it some more: @TheEvilSkeleton@treehouse.systems has been doing heroic work on accessibility (and also a quick shoutout to @nekohayo@mastodon.social for highlighting such work, and for their own contributions).
Unfortunately the accessibility situation can make it hard for people with disabilities to contribute, but I’ll also note that it’s very hard for people without disabilities to understand, let alone fix, issues with accessibility. So extra props for that.
I’ll be sharing this article in the future when I see people trash talking. Hopefully it’ll make them reconsider.