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
