Accessibility: comment links go to wrong comment on text browsers

Contribute Bug

AI-generated summary

jidanni is reporting a significant accessibility issue with comment links on the forum. When a user shares a link to a specific comment using a text browser like w3m or lynx, they are directed to a different comment than intended. This is because the link relies on JavaScript to navigate to the correct comment, which may fail. jidanni suggests that adding an ID to the comment element, e.g., <p id="123">, would resolve the issue and improve web accessibility. In a follow-up post, jidanni points out that the comment number is not hyperlinked, making it difficult for text browser users to copy and share the URL. However, eviltrout responds that Lynx is not supported.

1

Big problem!

Take this link to a certain comment 103.

If the users uses Firefox of Chrome, yes, the user will be looking at
comment 103.

But if the user uses w3m of lynx, they will be looking at comment 85!

(And who knows what will search engines be looking at?)

This could cause giant misunderstandings.

“Hey Bob, this (link) expresses my thoughts completely.”

But gasp, Bob sees a quite different thing than Bill intends him to see,
and never talks to Bill again.

Sure, there is probably some javascript that takes the user to the
proper place on the page. If the fragile javascript fails, the user is left sitting at the top of the page.

I mean ever since the birth of the WWW users could visit example.com/abc#123
and go straight to where they were supposed to be reading.

It is accomplished by e.g.,
<p id="123">
at the intended spot on the target page.

We are talking about Web Accessibility 101 here. C’mon folks.

2

And here we see the only thing hyperlinked is the username,
20201208T122850
the #103 is not hyperlinked. Meaning the text browser user easily cannot copy the URL of comment #103 to precisely share with their friends.

3

Sorry, we don’t support Lynx.

3 Likes