Post AW81aDl7pHzxmrpU6S by ChasMusic@ohai.social
(DIR) More posts by ChasMusic@ohai.social
(DIR) Post #AW5vRwGryT6NBvQQhE by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-27T22:47:10Z
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Dear accessibility experts,What advice do you have on citations with URLs? Most style guides say to write them out (as in the attached photo), but the accessibility plug-in on our website is throwing an error, and I can see how the URLs would be annoying to people who use screen readers. I’d love to hear how others handle it! #AmEditing #accessibility #AcademicWriting
(DIR) Post #AW5w01MFZHugoVC3wO by zoltandulac@mastodon.social
2023-05-27T22:53:21Z
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@grammargirl Use wikipedia's footnotes as a model. Use meaningfully labelled links - It is so much nicer for screen reader users.
(DIR) Post #AW5w1vVCJJBTEQHsGm by h2lift@twit.social
2023-05-27T22:53:43Z
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@grammargirl I've had that problem with epub.The fix is to put a space between the site name and the domain.H2liftship.comvs.H2liftship. comStill readable and the doc parser won't choke on it.good luck
(DIR) Post #AW5w6GpMxu9eWsnHYe by tkinias@historians.social
2023-05-27T22:54:29Z
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@grammargirl the style guides recommending the inclusion of URLs in citations are just flat-out wrong on this one IMO
(DIR) Post #AW5wbXvnQMPoYJiIHA by calvinprocyon@mas.to
2023-05-27T23:00:07Z
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@grammargirl by no means an "expert" — but when I'm including citations on something that will be distributed purely digitally, I'll link the URL to the name of the article/etc, instead of actually having the whole URL typed out
(DIR) Post #AW5xp042EoajWXXvaS by Thoreau@mas.to
2023-05-27T23:13:47Z
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@grammargirl What about using tinyurl.com ?
(DIR) Post #AW5zfyhA9rDsa2fpBo by petnoodle@zirk.us
2023-05-27T23:34:34Z
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@grammargirl Maybe they're older, print-focused style guides? In print URL needs to be there in full since otherwise they wouldn't be able to tell what website is being cited
(DIR) Post #AW61uChr3rv7zuuO5A by vecrumba@historians.social
2023-05-27T23:59:30Z
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@grammargirl Your accessibility plug-in should not be throwing up. (!)Aside from the creation/modification date, you should add a retrieved date, since web sites change or die over time. When you do reference a page, you should make sure to save a copy at archive.org, even if it's there already, so there's a copy there which matches or is at least close to your retrieval date.
(DIR) Post #AW64fno58lPQa6e5Ls by Downes@mastodon.social
2023-05-28T00:30:33Z
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@grammargirl I always write out the full URL. Without a period at the end, because that breaks the URL and creates errors. I hear you about screen readers having an issue with URLs, but this has been an issue for two decades now and at a certain point it becomes the responsibility of screen reader developers to fix this.
(DIR) Post #AW66oyqjeWhFLQOILY by ellie@ellieayla.net
2023-05-28T00:54:36Z
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@grammargirl I wouldn't call myself an expert, but do have an opinion? Or at least a thing I did.The full url text is really important in print, less so on the web. Those guides came from the print world. On the web, use a regular A tag, plus some css for the print media target:@media print { a::after{ content: " (" attr(href) ") "; }}
(DIR) Post #AW67FG4YF0fgI0NpXk by ChasMusic@ohai.social
2023-05-28T00:59:21Z
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@grammargirl Can't speak to style guides, but if we're talking online webpages, then the URL would always best be hidden behind visible meaningful link text. URL shortening services, IMO, do not contribute anything other than uncertainty. But the point is, having to listen to a screen reader read a URL out loud is going to be a miserable experience. I'm not sure what anyone expects a screen reader to do "better" by a bunch of ear garbage.
(DIR) Post #AW6AjoiqHIOWIuUaLA by bbsmooth@a11y.info
2023-05-28T01:38:27Z
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@grammargirl The plugin should be throwing a warning, or a best practice violation, not an actual error since using a URL as the link text is not strictly a WCAG failure. If it is throwing an actual error I'd be interested to know which plugin you are using.
(DIR) Post #AW6BSGzSXVFmiXSls0 by bbsmooth@a11y.info
2023-05-28T01:46:32Z
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@grammargirl As for the URL/link, I think this depends on the context. Is this for some sort of academic journal (or similar) that requires the citation be formatted in a certain matter. Then most likely the reader will understand this and you don't need to do anything special. Just make the URL a link as is. Yes, it will sound terrible, but the screen reader user will know the context and understand that this is a link to the article being cited.
(DIR) Post #AW6E1QkmQou92cUO0m by JohnDA@social.vivaldi.net
2023-05-28T02:15:17Z
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@grammargirl fwiw APA 7th has considered this point https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/accessibility/urls
(DIR) Post #AW6EXrzAicJklbgm8m by alexhall@mastodon.social
2023-05-28T02:21:09Z
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@grammargirl As a screen reader user, though not an expert in web accessibility coding, I'd first like the citation linked to in meaningful text. That is, make "As this study demonstrates" the linked text, and have it lead to the study. Or, do what Wikipedia does and number the citations, with each number a link that leads to the resource. As others have said in this thread, though, sometimes the style guide demands the full URL, but people reading it will likely know and understand this
(DIR) Post #AW6eoVRWNnZYaCXhfk by Cassana@universeodon.com
2023-05-28T07:15:31Z
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@grammargirl @CiaraNi Personally I’ve not found URLs in bibliographies problematic. As they are at the end of the reference, they’re the bit that can be skipped. They don’t add new information after all, just the location where to go for the referenced article. Same on websites where the URL will be split off from the main reference info as a separate navigable interactive element. A few online articles I’ve seen made the basic reference info into the link to the source (thus omitting the then redundant URL at the end), which is quite nice, but I don’t think that’s in any style guide yet; though should be IMHO.
(DIR) Post #AW6pm7WNS1vlJ8sYBU by del@neurodifferent.me
2023-05-28T09:18:19Z
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@grammargirl The format of your document is relevant however like a grammar checker you need to interpret the errors that get flagged. Not all accessibility checkers get everything right which is why I typically always check a site with at least two.To my mind I recommend you write out the URL in full but also make it an actual link too. If the document is printed it will be readable (unlike “meaningful” link text). If it’s not being printed it can be followed directly for further reading.
(DIR) Post #AW7EPSLaLuPU5l7XpA by mkj@social.linux.pizza
2023-05-28T13:54:20Z
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@grammargirl Make it a proper link instead; any screen reader or web accessibility tool that can't deal with links is so severely broken that there's probably no rescuing it anyway. Also for print, something like the CSS snippet that @ellie suggested is a very good idea.
(DIR) Post #AW7M4I4UA5Srm3XaT2 by jasonpettus@mastodon.cloud
2023-05-28T15:20:10Z
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@grammargirl To speak only theoretically, the main importance of academic citations is that many rules are over a thousand years old now, so provide a remarkable consistency over the centuries. Spelling out is the academic rule for URLs, so in theory you shouldn't change it. Ideally you would tackle it from the accessibility side, and code a reader so it would just say "weblink" when seeing a URL. The user could then say "spell link" or "destination" to deliberately learn more about it.
(DIR) Post #AW7YdC9tKu3B1NTnVI by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-28T17:40:57Z
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Many thanks to everyone who has responded to my question about URLs in citations and accessibility!I still need to go through them all, but I can address one thing that is coming up a lot right now:I know I won't use URL shorteners. A shortening service I used many years ago disappeared, and I lost all those links, so I won't risk that again. (I know you can set up your own URL shortening service on your own domain, but that isn't in the cards.)#AmEditing #accessibility #AcademicWriting
(DIR) Post #AW7Yy3diClBKgINMzw by CStamp@mastodon.social
2023-05-28T17:44:41Z
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@grammargirl That is smart. The fewer things that can go wrong, the happier everyone is. One problem that will always lurk is that some sites themselves disappear. Screen captures of particularly relevant comments to go along with the links could help preserve sense.
(DIR) Post #AW7cTuVZzPIdUTS640 by MediaBaron@mastodon.social
2023-05-28T18:24:06Z
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@grammargirl When I work on government computers it wouldn’t allow us to visit sites using shorteners due to security. Had to use a link expanders which not everyone knew.
(DIR) Post #AW7oSOXiY9bhVmUoW8 by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-28T20:38:17Z
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@JohnDA @abdalian Thank you! It's especially interesting to see the APA thinking on the topic of links in citations and accessibility.I don't have the same issues they do (my works are unlikely to appear often in print), but it's helpful to see what they considered.https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/accessibility/urls
(DIR) Post #AW7olYF0iSX35mseIK by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-28T20:41:44Z
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@MediaBaron Yes, I was out of space in that post, but I also hate that URL shorteners hide where you are going. I rarely use them these days.
(DIR) Post #AW80l2wQHqh7T3iCgq by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-28T22:56:06Z
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@Cassana Thanks! Great points. I appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective.
(DIR) Post #AW8113hBFbWcRLDYIK by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-28T22:58:56Z
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@erion Thanks! It helpful to understand a little more about how screen readers work.
(DIR) Post #AW81N1voUQVTL8XTCC by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-28T23:02:59Z
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@alexhall Thanks! I am especially appreciating the insights of people who use screen readers.
(DIR) Post #AW81U5WRXOSsVI2OSe by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-28T23:04:15Z
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@bbsmooth True. My wording was imprecise. It gave me a big red warning box.
(DIR) Post #AW81aDl7pHzxmrpU6S by ChasMusic@ohai.social
2023-05-28T01:04:17Z
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@vecrumba @grammargirl We noticed people were copying and pasting URLs with trailing periods and getting not found errors, so we programmed our website to strip those periods whenever an error occurred.
(DIR) Post #AW81aEU97u0k2UtRHE by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-28T23:05:21Z
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@vecrumba Clever!
(DIR) Post #AW87TAD7DkMSTmwK0W by alexhall@mastodon.social
2023-05-29T00:11:19Z
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@grammargirl No problem. Screen readers introduce some interesting differences in the way people use computers. I appreciate that you took the time to investigate this, and that you bother to use an accessibility checker.
(DIR) Post #AW87h9U6iU6qHYYdMW by SteveLionel@masto.ai
2023-05-29T00:13:51Z
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@grammargirl I keep encountering sites that go through a remake of their software, changing URLs, and don't keep redirects for the old ones. A technical site where I have saved many links, including to articles I wrote, have those links broken. Even worse, some of these pages have simply been removed because someone thought they were no longer relevant.
(DIR) Post #AWDccOp3rH4ff1HdeC by grvsmth@lingo.lol
2023-05-31T15:46:24Z
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@Cassana @grammargirl @CiaraNi I honestly don't see anything problematic in that URL, other than the period at the end. It's very straightforward. I would expect it to sound fine in a screen reader.We're talking about people who can understand bibliographies here. Why do we assume they can't understand a simple URL?
(DIR) Post #AWDccQ7t0lj7hh6Bd2 by grammargirl@zirk.us
2023-05-31T15:53:47Z
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@grvsmth @Cassana @CiaraNi I'm not implying they can't understand a URL. I'm worried it might be annoying to hear a URL read aloud (and my accessibility plug-in says it's bad).
(DIR) Post #AWDd6Kr1B3RU2YTPNI by grvsmth@lingo.lol
2023-05-31T15:59:18Z
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@grammargirl @Cassana @CiaraNi I don't know who wrote your accessibility plugin, but I'm skeptical.I agree that it would be annoying to hear a URL that's just a random string of numbers and letters read aloud (like the URL for this post), but I don't see why a straightforward URL would be annoying...