ADA Americans With Disabilities Act Compliant?

[phpsoft]

Apparently there is a cottage industry of lawyers suing people with websites that are non ADA compliant.

Nearly 5,000 ADA lawsuits were filed in federal court for alleged website violations in the first six months of 2018

It costs around $10,000 to settle these lawsuits and fixing the website after the fact doesn't help. Here are the requirements roughly speaking:

content must be coded so that screen-reading software can convert the words to an audio translation. Video that appears on a website must include descriptions for the deaf. Also, all interactive functions must be operable through keyboard commands

Here is a link to an informative article:

Lawsuits targeting business websites over ADA violations are on the rise

[WelshPaul]

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

I found this: https://restaurant.org/advocacy/ADA-Lawsuits and this: https://brailleworks.com/why-the-rise-in-ada-lawsuits/

[warmweer]

Apparently there is a cottage industry of lawyers suing people with websites that are non ADA compliant.

Nearly 5,000 ADA lawsuits were filed in federal court for alleged website violations in the first six months of 2018

It costs around $10,000 to settle these lawsuits and fixing the website after the fact doesn't help. Here are the requirements roughly speaking:

content must be coded so that screen-reading software can convert the words to an audio translation. Video that appears on a website must include descriptions for the deaf. Also, all interactive functions must be operable through keyboard commands

Here is a link to an informative article:

Lawsuits targeting business websites over ADA violations are on the rise

And the support question is ...?

Anyway, I can understand the "requirement/need" for business websites but seriously that kind of "law" goes a bit too far (probably an understatement). Having said this I don't know exactly what the fuss is all about since the link you posted informs me that the site cannot be viewed from Europe (and, no, I won't sue).
I'm all for provisions for people with limitations (be it through birth, disease or accident) but sometimes these "do good for all"s can exaggerate. What's the next thing? Computerscreens have to be braille-readable, youtube has to make it's site sensation-capable for the hard of hearing (or deaf).
Anyway, the article comes from the LA Times and I've never heard of such requirements so I suspect it's the US's answer to GDPR.

[Lumpy Burgertushie]

I didn't read it but in the past, all of those types of regulations have been aimed at mainly government sites and only limited commercial sites.

your average joe blow website does not have to worry about anything like that.


robert

[phpsoft]

WelshPaul -Interesting the LA Times can't be accessed in the EU.

I didn't read it but in the past, all of those types of regulations have been aimed at mainly government sites and only limited commercial sites.
your average joe blow website does not have to worry about anything like that.
robert

Yes that used to be the case, but government sites have long since been fixed. The new suits are aimed at small businesses that don't have the resources to fight them, and would lose nonetheless. For the price of a postage stamp law firms are on target to file against 30% more firms this year than last, and you can expect the numbers to grow exponentially. My guess is that within 5-10 years it will be universally required in the US.
I'm not going to argue the merits of the laws, it just seems the right thing to do, it would seem simple (and apparently my browser supports it) to allow non-mouse users to tab thru a BBS, and there is software out there to read text.
Otherwise it would seem to be much too risky to put up forums for businesses, or as you do, to help people put up forums.

Allowing users to upload only videos with closed captions might be only achievable by site administrators, but perhaps it is possible to enforce it in code? So, is it currently possible to apply a rule to uploads such as images, videos, pdf files etc. that would enforce ADA compliance?

[John connor]

I read about this several months ago so I added the following text to my user agreement in order to register.

By registering and/or accessing this website you agree that this website is not designed for the disabled.

I'm not a lawyer by any means, but it's the best I could do. I did ask this question at the freeadvice.com website and a lawyer stated I had nothing to worry about based on some law. But I think he's wrong based on the media reports. So I take no chances. I mean, I only pay $8 a month for a few crappy websites. I can't afford a lawyer and court fees over some BS litigation. A sue happy world we live in. It's no wonder the world is going to hell.

[AmigoJack]

Allowing users to upload only videos with closed captions might be only achievable by site administrators, but perhaps it is possible to enforce it in code?

While your wording is needlessly exclusive (why not allowing open captions or videos without audio as well? Not to mention blind people which need just the opposite) most likely nobody is uploading any video to your board, but merely linking/embedding it. The board would need to

1. have access to the file (which is only indirectly the case if it's not uploaded thru phpBB),
2. recognize the video container format (MOV, MKV, WMV, 3GP, RM, FLV, MPEG, AVI...),
3. support the recognized format (not every of those is easy to parse),
4. parse the file to scan for subtitle streams, and
5. somehow make sure the found subtitles are not only forced ones for 2 scenes in a whole movie when foreign languages are spoken or displayed.

Do you understand how much effort this needs? And even then subtitles can come in their own files.

Also, as ususal, other nations have similar regulations - more or less deriving from W3C's WAI, first published in 1999. In Germany BITV does not affect private and/or commercial websites.

[miroslavglavic]

Thank the gods I am neither in USA or EU. I am in Canada.

I'd love to make my phpbb based sites fully accessible, I did for my WordPress based sites accessible.
The problem is that an "accessible site" has different meanings in USA, Canada, EU and so forth.