Tell HN: Slack decides to close down IRC and XMPP gateways

Post by dotancohen » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:58 AM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #203

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can slack plausibly cause ADA compliance problems re: visually impaired people? or would it end up as "use the browser client with a screen reader and be glad you can do that"

The ADA only applies to certain types of "public" private businesses. Like grocery stores and bakeries, hotels, etc. I have never heard of it applying to any private software (that isn't government related). You can always use some other chat software or none at all. However, I would imagine that as a company, if you require employees to use specific software as a condition of employment and no accommodation can be m…

Post by ForHackernews » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 10:04 AM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #412

jdeibele wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay $20 and you get the number permanently. I've set up my kids' soccer club and my son's Cub Scout Pack with voicemail-only numbers. Callers leave a message and a recording and a transcription is forwarded to the appropriate person via email. I've also read using Google Voice is highly recommended for things that require a voice or text number since it's very difficult to get hold of someone at Google that can be so…

Where can I get a permanent (US) number anywhere? The cheapest I've seen slightly below $2/month, but all the super cheap carriers are very volatile businesses and you can't expect to keep them more than a few years. Seeing as you don't really own phone numbers in the sense you own domain names, any permanence is limited by the life span of your service provider.

Post by amedvednikov » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 10:16 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #11

I'm very disappointed to see that Slack has decided to go the way of every other messaging service and move away from decentralized and standardized protocols towards those that are walled and proprietary. > We are focused on making Slack accessible to all people. Over the past year, we've made great progress in improving both the keyboard and screen reading experiences in Slack. We know many users have been relying…

Post by ForHackernews » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 10:26 AM UTC

omeid2 wrote: post #371

themacguffinman wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so eventually they'd block every major organization and then it's practically the same as abandoning XMPP federation. Commercial incentives just don't align with XMPP, that's the underlying problem.

How would that explain Email?

Post by terminalcommand » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 10:31 AM UTC

gh02t wrote: post #332

azinman2 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how does it sanely pronounce things with abbreviations or even something like: NSDictionary *myCompoundedWord = @{@“key: [NSNumber numberWithInt: 7] }; And know that it’s missing the terminal “ in the string and has an extra space after the ]? Seems very difficult. Would be great if it could understand the language enough to verbalize it at a higher level.

Screenreaders usually break it down into chunks it can pronounce or spell it out character by character, with added cues to indicate punctuation and some other things. It's not as slow as it sounds though, most blind people have their screenreaders set to read at a speed that is totally incomprehensible if you're not used to it. It requires a very good memory to manage something like programming, but blind people get…