3 ms·

Author here. As others already stated, this is not a legitimate use in my opinion. As of WCAG, there is only one legitimate use of text which may not pass the c

Author here. As others already stated, this is not a legitimate use in my opinion. As of WCAG, there is only one legitimate use of text which may not pass the contrast ratio levels: disabled state (e.g. disabled buttons). I am aware that this is only applied to downvoted comments. But using an insufficient contrast ratio excludes the _readers_, not the posters. There are accessible ways to deemphasize unwanted comments. BTW, HN currently has 237 occurrences of insufficient contrast ratio on the front page. While my example was an extreme one, even regular content is not sufficient on HN, unfortunately.

kazinator 6y ago
The whole idea is to make the downvoted comment less accessible, predicated on the idea that the readers don't want to read it. Evidence supporting that idea that they don't want to read it is the fact that they downvoted it (or rather those representatives among the readership who are able to downvote chose to do so). Though I agree that HN is rife with examples of poor contrast. For instance, when you are looking at a submission's comments, the submission title at the top is in poor contrast. As I'm editing, the toolbar right above above my comment "1 point by kazinator 2 minutes ago | parent | edit | delete ..." is in poor contrast. The idea there seems to be to deemphasize non-content.
- darekkay 6y ago
  > The whole idea is to make the downvoted comment less accessible, predicated on the idea that the readers don't want to read it. Evidence supporting that idea that they don't want to read it is the fact that they downvoted it (or rather those representatives among the readership who are able to downvote chose to do so). I'm totally getting the motivation, but it doesn't solve the accessibility issue. If some people with high karma decide that a comment is low quality, then by all means, HN could collapse the comment by default. Totally fine with me, because everyone else can still access it if they choose to. With the current solution, many people don't get this chance. Accessibility is about equal treatment.
- jfengel 6y ago
  The problem is that "less accessible" for some users is "completely inaccessible" to others. That's against the intention: the goal was to make it easier to ignore, but not vanish entirely. A higher-contrast option would solve it, but configuration always introduces new headaches. It's best when all users can be satisfied with the same display (using their own configurations, such as browser settings). Which is too bad, because the low-contrast display is a clever approach to de-emphasize poor content, but it doesn't work for all users.

kazinator 6y ago

The whole idea is to make the downvoted comment less accessible, predicated on the idea that the readers don't want to read it. Evidence supporting that idea that they don't want to read it is the fact that they downvoted it (or rather those representatives among the readership who are able to downvote chose to do so). Though I agree that HN is rife with examples of poor contrast. For instance, when you are looking at a submission's comments, the submission title at the top is in poor contrast. As I'm editing, the toolbar right above above my comment "1 point by kazinator 2 minutes ago | parent | edit | delete ..." is in poor contrast. The idea there seems to be to deemphasize non-content.

darekkay 6y ago
> The whole idea is to make the downvoted comment less accessible, predicated on the idea that the readers don't want to read it. Evidence supporting that idea that they don't want to read it is the fact that they downvoted it (or rather those representatives among the readership who are able to downvote chose to do so). I'm totally getting the motivation, but it doesn't solve the accessibility issue. If some people with high karma decide that a comment is low quality, then by all means, HN could collapse the comment by default. Totally fine with me, because everyone else can still access it if they choose to. With the current solution, many people don't get this chance. Accessibility is about equal treatment.
jfengel 6y ago
The problem is that "less accessible" for some users is "completely inaccessible" to others. That's against the intention: the goal was to make it easier to ignore, but not vanish entirely. A higher-contrast option would solve it, but configuration always introduces new headaches. It's best when all users can be satisfied with the same display (using their own configurations, such as browser settings). Which is too bad, because the low-contrast display is a clever approach to de-emphasize poor content, but it doesn't work for all users.