I got this in the Tech E-mail inbox today at work;

Question From: Timo(XXX@???.com)

Question:

Please Check these results, they are pretty bad:

[LINK EMBEDDED IN E-MAIL]

Another:

Hmm:

“The maximum number of errors was reached. Further errors in the document have not been reported.”

[LINK EMBEDDED IN E-MAIL]

I contacted you a few years ago with this type of information and never got a response. Sounds like you never learned! Sorry to be blunt but I love Canadian content but hate it when it’s not presented properly.

I hope someone reads this and says “Perhaps we should look at this”.

I think all disabled people in Canada and around the world would be appreciative!

Thanks for letting me vent,

Timo

Thanks Timo. I really appreciate your e-mail. I can’t tell you how much this helps me. I’ll just go ahead and tell everyone that we’ve gotta stop updating the damn “sports scores” and “sports news”, so that we can all get right on to the important business at hand…making TSN.ca standards compliant.

Listen, you won’t find a guy more willing to make a site standards compliant, but I’m realistic. The powers that be don’t care that the site is standards compliant, they care that it works in their browsers (it does), and that it has the latest news (it does). Standards compliance is a “nice to have” if I can get it done on my own time, in between other projects…you know, like making sure the system all works right.

To all of you who would like to send a similar letter to any organization, big or small, may I make one suggestion?

Don’t.

It doesn’t help anyone, we’re all aware of our deficiencies, and could probably point 100 more out on top of the 10 you point out. Not only that, but you have no idea what kind of conditions we’re working in, or what else we’re trying to do (or the fact that we’re building a whole new standards compliant, CSS based site behind the scenes, but Rome wasn’t built in a day…at least it wasn’t built properly in a day).

Your arrogance isn’t helping anyone, and if you were in my position, where you were one of a team of THREE PEOPLE who build and maintain TSN.ca right now, or the fact that a year ago my team got cut in half due to budget cutbacks, you’d see that we’re already fighting an uphill battle.