Bug#1007106: reportbug: please make the meaning of the a11y tag clearer
Package: reportbug
Version: 11.4.1
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org
I've noticed that a lot of bug reports, particularly in packages with
many non-technical users, have the a11y tag when they shouldn't, which
presumably makes the tag less useful for people who are interested in a11y
by harming the signal-to-noise ratio.
My understanding is that the a11y tag is intended to be for bugs that
harm Debian's usefulness for people who rely on assistive technologies
(screen readers, high contrast themes, etc.), and more generally, people
who are not well-served by typical application developer assumptions as
a result of disabilities or similar factors. The debian-accessibility
mailing list is described on https://lists.debian.org/devel.html as
"Making Debian more accessible to people with disabilities", and the
a11y tag is shown on bugs.debian.org as a wheelchair symbol emoji,
which supports that interpretation.
However, reportbug describes the tag as:
> 1 a11y This bug is relevant to the accessibility of the package.
and I think a lot of non-technical users are interpreting this as "this
bug makes it hard for *me personally* to use this package" - but if
we used that interpretation, then it would apply to a lot of medium to
high severity bugs in user-facing components like desktop environments,
and the bugs that are particularly relevant to debian-accessibility
subscribers would be lost in the noise.
For instance, the bug that prompted me to open this one is a deadlock (or
something) in interacting with Pipewire's PulseAudio-compatible server,
which makes the game Minetest (among others) take a long time to start
and have no sound. That certainly makes it hard to access normal
functionality of minetest, but it doesn't seem like a bug that needs
particular attention from accessibility experts...
Can anyone suggest a wording that makes the intention of the tag clearer,
without "othering" the people who particularly need bugs with this tag to
be fixed? I've cc'd debian-accessibility in the hope that someone on that
list has a better idea. I don't want to use terms that will offend people
(and I apologise if I have), but I also think the current description is
sufficiently vague to be harming the usefulness of the a11y tag.
Thanks,
smcv
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