Participation in the meetup was low but that wasn’t unexpected. There wasn’t a posted agenda, people are on vacation or are timezone challenged due to WCEU.
There was one item that I’d like to post and possibly make someone blush. Jackie (@abletec) you may want to stop reading this. I don’t intend to put you on the spot (honest!) but here I go.
Jackie used Instantbird to participated in the #forums Slack channel
I was jumping for joy. 😉
Jackie had been collaborating with @zoonini to get the IRC gateway working for her. @jcastaneda and I had been poking at Instantbird for Windows and Jose shared what I was missing to get it connected. But Kathryn and Jackie together sorted it out. Jackie was able to join and participate in the support meetup.
The IRC gateway to Slack isn’t perfect. The gateway pipes in server status messages a lot and that’s distracting. But it’s useable and outside of the native Slack client becoming a11y friendly this is an option.
Accessibility is important. It’s more important than any old browser version compatibility. There’s a whole segment of WordPress users who want to get involved. Here’s the proof from Jackie that I was thrilled to read.
But for the 1st time I really feel a part of the WP community.
That’s it right there and that’s the whole point of getting a11y issues stamped out. The Slack IRC gateway is a step in that direction.
View today’s meetup transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)