I have resigned as the WordPress accessibility team lead

Exactly! They spent time and energy on this new codebase without gaining consensuses on the value of the new codebase and without giving their accessibility experts reasons to feel invested. And without investing in training them.

Why is user experience and accessibility always someone else's problem? Why does the burden of "learning enough" to do their job correctly always fall on everyone except the engineers who advocate doing these complete rewrites?

React and JSX are not open web standards. They're popular, but they're are not a common denominator. They require you to learn and use JavaScript first and foremost and were designed uninclusively with software engineers as the audience. This is a stark contrast to the declarative languages of CSS and HTML that were designed inclusively with designers and other non-programmers as an audience.

So, you know what? It's no surprise that a React rewrite alienated an accessibility team. It's no surprise that the accessibility team worked their asses off to try to demonstrate the value of inclusiveness and tried without success to train these engineers and get problems the engineers created fixed, only to be told the issue was going about it the wrong way.

React's fanbase largely views inclusiveness and accessibility as an optional, bolt on feature that can be addressed later. As something it's okay to sacrifice on the alter of the new hotness. React's fanbase doesn't give a crap if someone who could previously contribute something very valuable very effectively can't anymore. Someone who has concerns other than learning new languages and frameworks constantly should just get out of way, they're clearly too dumb or too old to matter.

It takes more than a week if you're not already a JavaScript software engineer.

Yeah, welcome to freaking HN? FYI, "Live Regions" is an ARIA feature and has nothing whatsoever to do with React specifically. ARIA, also commonly known as WAI ARIA. Which stands for Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications. It's a W3C suite of standards literally all about accessibility. That's probably what made it so mind-boggling that you'd think it's news to an accessibility expert.

I'm guessing yours is some sort of sockpuppet account otherwise welcoming me would seem sort of beside the point; given my relative length on the site compared to yours, evidently.

That said considering I was just lectured on civility for much less rudeness (I of course think I was not rude at all) in a politically charged thread where rudeness is sometimes expected I believe your opinion of the site is at odds with what is at least hoped for and my surprise at the tone given the circumstances was warranted.

However where rudeness is concerned I believe I can give better than I get if need be, and you're also quite rude so here are some points:

1. When I post a link to an MDN resource it is not because I think MDN is the standard place to get React specific information. That should be obvious to anyone on this site who claims technical expertise in Web matters, and you should have stopped with the patronizing let me tell you about ARIA spiel.

2. I believe a reading through my posting history on HN will show that I at least have enough familiarity with accessibility that you don't need go give me the Aria intro. Even if linking to a part of it on MDN wasn't a clue enough. (I could have linked to W3C but as introductory pieces they are much less successful than MDN content in my opinion)

3. The article was mainly about problems with doing accessibility in React, which I agree is problematic (for big SPAs at any rate) and live regions while helpful is in many ways more difficult to do right where accessibility is concerned than a normal HTML5/JavaScript application. Many people interested in React might read that article and say damn you can't do accessibility in React, because those accessibility experts couldn't do it. I made an offhand comment on a technology I have some experience with in React, and pointed to a resource on the technology trusting that anyone interested would either research matters further or at worst ask me for clarification ( which I would hate because the reason for writing a small offhand comment and providing a simple introductory link to a technology is because I don't have time for much more)

Dude, I don't know you and this is not personal. Breathe and remember there's always someone wrong on the internet. Far as I've ever been able to tell, HN is full of rudeness. It's why I don't have activity. Bigger bunch of circle jerking, back patting, myopic pedants I've rarely seen. YMMV. And I just so happen to have different accounts logged in on different devices 'cause I lost the password to my more favorite username and had to create another. shrug There's not a sneaky agenda.

I really, with all goodwill this time, recommend you spend your limited time and energy on more important matters than my misdirected flames. You spent it less than fruitfully in a tailspin over this, seemingly, and I'm sorry for that; I've been there. I should probably remember those hours when I post, but I am a deeply flawed and bitter person.