And every common description of web accessibility. From WAI to Wikipedia to common courses. I'm not saying it's good design or the right direction for GitHub. Just that accessibility is important and disabling-js is not really it.

Specifically: disabling JS - your choice; having a disability - not your choice.

In my case, yes, it is by choice. But do you think everyone has a choice? JavaScript is a power-hungry, memory-hungry, bloated, security nightmare. Requiring JavaScript for basic functionality (that was available not that long ago!) is simply hostile.

Yes most consumer devices run the same 3 browsers all of which run Javascript just fine. I get you don't like it, but that doesn't mean its an accessibility problem.

> Yes most consumer devices run the same 3 browsers all of which run Javascript just fine. I get you don't like it, but that doesn't mean its an accessibility problem.

Assuming you have a new enough device. My 300€ android from 2017 is essentially unusable as it can't run JS well enough any longer.

That doesn't make sense except for a few heavy applications of JS like a resource-intensive web game which is obviously a niche outside of general statements about the internet.

Your 2017 Android isn't unusable because it can't run AJAX and $(dropdown).toggle() fast enough. Maybe it's not as fast as your laptop.

The issue here is that nowadays "heavy applications of JS" are quite common on blogs, news websites and other "definitely not web applications"-type of websites.

With JS enabled, I sometimes see simple mousewheel scrolling slow down or become choppy, or spiking CPU usage for a second or two. Simple scrolling of content that is already rendered and is not moving. And often, the same site with JS disabled scrolls smoothly (or completely fails to load, it's a crapshoot, really).

I have even older android phone and js runs fine.

No, accessibility is already defined as a legal concept that has been around since before the advent of the Internet, because it also applies to our physical infrastructure.

There's a really big gap between claiming that modern web development goes too far and runs far too much code and is much too bloated and claiming all sites that require javascript are "not accessible." You may as well go into shouty rants about the use of color because you refuse to stop using a monochrome terminal.

Note the title of that section:

> Ensure that pages are accessible even when newer technologies are not supported or are turned off.

Makes perfect sense to put JS in there in 1999, but it can hardly be considered a "newer technology" now.

I wonder what makes people so eager to push back on such a simple request, to make basic functionality available without JavaScript. In GitHub's case, they only recently screwed it up in a major way, so surely it shouldn't be a big deal to add back the functionality?

Is it "frontend programmers" feeling hurt? Or business types who think it hurts their telemetry channels? Do their salaries depend on it? Or perhaps it's just people who just need to disapprove of someone else's preferences?

It's a simple request. Yes, more than 99% of your users use JavaScript, are not blind or deaf, have reasonably fast links, powerful machines, large enough screens, don't mind updating their browser every week (very important! security matters _so much_ when you regularly run arbitrary code), etc.

So I'm in the 1%... why do so many people feel such a strong need to tell me this issue of mine is a non-issue for everybody else?

> I wonder what makes people so eager to push back on such a simple request, to make basic functionality available without JavaScript.

I think it's as simple as the fact that your simple request isn't important to them, but you demand it as though you are owed a javascript-free web experience. "I am not doing that because I don't want to" is a perfectly good answer to your demands. It really doesn't matter how easy it would be for them to provide it. They're also probably not providing RSS, though you may want them to, and that would be easy too. Sorry your pet thing is not prioritized.

Personally, I think a small amount of client-side scripting can vastly improve a user experience, and way too much client-side scripting can vastly deter from it. It's a balance that each site must strike. And the effort they must go through to test and support all functionality while also supporting completely disabling javascript is definitely nonzero. Some sites won't find that effort worth it. That's the breaks. I can tell you that I never, ever intend to put any effort into supporting a no-javascript user experience on anything I build in the future. I could almost see rendering an alternate page that says "you no-JS kooks aren't gonna be happy here" but even that is more effort than I care to expend on a militant userbase that's likely to also take exception to some silly shit like my html not being semantic enough.

Are you working for GitHub? If not, nobody asked you anything. That you are taking such offense at my simple request that you have to create a "non-JS kook" personality type to satisfy your vindictive feelings is mystifying. Try to improve yourself.

To answer your question, I don't work at GitHub. And I really don't take offense to your simple request, but I do find it interesting how vehemently you are making your "simple request." I also don't think it's unreasonable to turn off JS. What I do think is unreasonable is turning off JS and then getting angry over the fact that few other people care about this scenario.

> Try to improve yourself.

Trying all the time, thanks for the reminder.

> Are you working for GitHub? If not, nobody asked you anything.

I think you've somewhat misunderstood the purpose of a public forum.

> In GitHub's case, they only recently screwed it up in a major way, so surely it shouldn't be a big deal to add back the functionality?

Unless you're under the impression that websites are only requiring JavaScript out of spite, it seems like it would be a pretty big deal.

> why do so many people feel such a strong need to tell me this issue of mine is a non-issue for everybody else?

Because it's self-imposed, your justification involved calling JavaScript a "newer technology", and people tend not to react well to the belief that "I don't want to run JavaScript" is comparable to disability.

I don't know how much programming experience you have, but let me tell you that bringing back an HTML dropdown menu is not a big deal. I don't know about "spite", but I would say it's either an oversight, or incompetence, or some grander goal to force JavaScript on their users for what could be termed "business-related reasons".

You picked up on "newer technology" as if it's pertinent to the matter. It is not. This usability checkpoint is still 100% valid today. I gave reference to that document to show that the matter is related to accessibility, and to provide evidential support to userbinator's view that the term has been hijacked by the web giants and munged up to exclude whatever is inconvenient to them.

You, like others in this thread, bring "disability" and "self-imposition" to this discussion. I dare you to imagine a world where not everybody who wishes to make basic use of GitHub is able, even if willing, to run JavaScript in every conceivable context. Can you imagine such a world? In this totally imaginary world this inaccessibility is not self-imposed. Given such a world, would you be willing to accept that my simple request is reasonable?

You are seeing the true nature of corporate greed and control show its ugly face. The end-game is clear: one browser controlled by one company, of great complexity and continuously changed to discourage others from attempting to compete, shaping websites to that one company's desires. Of course everything will be "standard" and "open", but that hardly matters.

One company has clearly invested a lot into the "JS only" propaganda and strongly attempts to silence the opposition. Turning all sites into ridiculously overcomplex "web apps" that only work in their very latest browser is their dream. It's obvious that a simple text-only or even text+images browser is not all that complex, so from that perspective, basic HTML and browsers that can handle it is a threat --- and cutting those off by making sites not work in them is the ultimate underhanded tactic. They can cheer all they want about "moving the web forward" --- and unfortunately a lot of the "young and impressionable" gets caught up in that propaganda --- but what they are really doing is helping this company further its control over the Internet.

This company is, of course, Google.

Don't forget the endless stream of security updates, bundled up with whatever new UI/tracking/arbitrariness they want to force upon you. After all, the world wide web is a dangerous place, and your data is at risk. Don't you trust us to keep you safe? As if you had a choice.