Money quote:

When every new website on the internet has perfect, semantic, accessible HTML and exceptionally executed, accessible CSS that works on every device and browser, then you can tell me that these languages are not valuable on their own. Until then we need to stop devaluing CSS and HTML.
Mandy Michael

In case you were wondering, we have a long, long way to go before we get to the point where every single website meets the qualifications I quoted above. We’re not even close. Wanna know why? Crappy HTML, and crappy CSS. That is pretty much what this whole accessibility thing comes down to, at the most basic level. People who use assistive technology can’t use ninety percent of the web because crappy HTML and crappy CSS. You have trouble using your phone to browse the web when it’s sunny out on your back porch because crappy CSS. If you pay me to audit your WordPress theme or plugin, the overwhelming majority of the issues I’m going to flag have to do with the way your PHP and JS are creating HTML and you’re using crappy CSS. Wanna use ARIA for your controls? Guess what it does. Extend HTML. And this isn’t a JavaScript-specific thing. They’re far from the first to be of the opinion that HTML and CSS aren’t important or are less valuable than the latest fad. This idea is almost as old as the web itself. PHP shares this attitude in some quarters. So did every other community building something that was supposed to be the be-all-end-all of creating things on the web. I’d even venture to say that this attitude was prevalent for a very long time in the WordPress space, and the further you get from the inner circle of the WordPress community, (the one percent, if you will), the more prevalent this attitude is. But HTML and CSS are critical to how the entire web works, and unless you learn them to underpin your JS and your PHP or whatever other web technology comes along in the future, we will continue to have a broken web, and it’s only a matter of time before you, personally, have to deal with the consequences in a way that you can’t change by simply changing your surroundings. Seriously, don’t wait till it gets to that point. Learn HTML and CSS properly so that we all have a web to use no matter what the circumstances. Learn HTML and CSS properly so you can build page builders with graphical user interfaces that anyone can use to build things for the web that work for everyone. Don’t shift onto the shoulders of your users the task of playing whack-a-mole to find accessibility problems and then making the extra effort to report them to you in the most diplomatic way possible, because that takes a metric ton of energy and emotional labor, and every single person with a disability should not have to be an accessibility advocate. Don’t continue to foster a situation where there are entire platforms where you can’t build or use a website while using assistive technology, only to then be possibly told that if you want to be able to do so, you might have to vote on it as a feature, and hope you can get enough people together to convince some CEO somewhere that this thing that is part and parcel of how the web was intended to work that he’s now considering an enhancement is something he really should fix on his platform. It’s not enough for only some platforms to be accessible. Every single one of them should be, by default, and getting there requires that anyone who calls themselves a web developer learn HTML and CSS, even if that means you have to stop what you’re doing with the latest sexy thing on the web so you can go back and learn them.

I could probably boil all of this down to “Don’t be a jerk.” But “Learn HTML and CSS” is the one thing that the accessibility community has been saying for years and years and years and years, and if we were to turn this into a drinking game, (every time you have to correct some developer’s HTML or CSS, take a drink), we’d all be dead from alcohol poisoning. And it’s incredibly disheartening to ponder where we might be if everyone who ever built anything for the web had learned its foundational technologies properly. So, go learn HTML and CSS deeply, and quit devaluing these technologies by your words and actions.

Why do people thread in the first place?

People thread on Twitter because Twitter’s 140-character limit is almost never enough when you really need to get something off your chest. Also, Twitter, (including third-party applications), has an incredibly simple posting interface without a lot of distraction involved. The fact that you can use a third-party app on your phone which may have an even simpler posting interface, through which you can fire off tweets at the drop of a hat, makes it even better. When you add up a 140-character limit, plus a really simple posting interface, it’s easy to see why Twitter threads have become as popular as they are.

Still, I would like to discourage you from Twitter threading. In the strongest possible terms.

Threading might be great if you’re the one posting the content. I use the word “might” because whether it’s great for you or not is debatable. But if you’re trying to read it, that’s an entirely different story. For one thing, it takes a lot of time and effort to scroll back through tweets, and that’s assuming you’ve stumbled on the original tweet that started the thread. If not, you’re stuck in the hell that is Twitter’s user experience trying to scroll back through tweets. If someone quotes a tweet in your thread, the thread is now broken, which makes the effort needed to put into reading an entire thread much more involved. It means that you might have to spend more time in Twitter’s horrible user experience hellscape trying to find out where the thread begins because someone quoted in the middle of a thread. Second, since Twitter threads are by their nature chunks of ideas, it’s realy difficult to cite a thread in such a way that keeps all the comments in context. Since tweets are now making up a large part of what gets reported by news outlets of all stripes, that means this has become more important, both for those reporting the news and for those reading it.

Next, there’s the problem of linking to this content. Since each tweet has it’s own link, and that link is based on a user ID, linking to all the pieces of content that make up a thread is somewhat like collecting individual rice grains once you’ve dropped the bag of rice. Not easy. And depending on how many tweets are in the thread, (I’ve seen threads of over 300 of them), a metric ton of work.

Then, there’s the part about how the content you create is yours and not some corporation’s. There are a lot of good ideas floating around Twitter, (and other social networks for that matter), but as long as that content is being posted on Twitter and nowhere else, you don’t own that content. If Twitter decides to change its link structure, that content may be lost.

This is important for people, but it’s also important for businesses. Posting your content on Twitter in the form of a thread, (or really, on any social network), instead of your website means you no longer own that content. It’s like going and setting up a stall at the local flee market and calling it your office. You’ve invested time in creating that content, you should own it. It should have a permanent link that won’t change unless you want it to, and which anyone can link to. Then, you can syndicate that content to Twitter, or Facebook, or anywhere else you like, and even if someone isn’t on any of those networks, (believe it or not, there are people who don’t use social media, and have no desire to start using it), can read and benefit from your content.

But what if I’ve already threaded on Twitter?

Fortunately, there are some tools you can use to collect all the parts of your thread and turn them in to blog post for later linking and enjoyment. Spooler is an excellent choice for converting Twitter threads into blog posts. You can start with the last tweet in a thread, and it will also grab any videos and images you’ve posted to Twitter that are part of the thread. If you find that you’re live-tweeting a talk or something similar, Noter Live is a great option which will, (once you’re done tweeting), allow you to copy all your tweets from the event into one post, along with including the speaker’s Twitter handle if they have one. If it’s the feedback you’re after, you can always enable webmention on your site. Popular web platforms like WordPress and Drupal have plugins to do this, and you can use a service like Bridgy to syndicate your content to the social networks, and then pull in reactions and responses to your own site so you have them all in one place, coupled with the content you created.

While I’m pretty certain this one post isn’t going to stop you from threading tweets, I hope that you’ll consider the people who are reading the content you’re creating, and instead of creating a thread that’s not even enjoyable to read on Twitter, you’ll at least consider turning it into a blog post afterwords.

Starting on June 30, 2017, att.net customers will no longer be able to log in to their Yahoo and Tumblr accounts through email addresses with the following domains: att.net, ameritech.net, bellsouth.net, flash.net, nvbell.net, pacbell.net, prodigy.net, sbcglobal.net, snet.net, swbell.net, and wans.net.
If you’re affected, all you need to do to ensure continued access to your Tumblr account is to update your registered email address to something other than one of these addresses mentioned above.

Source: Tumblr’s Helpdesk

The help article then goes on to tell people how to update their registered email address. Neither self-hosted WordPress, (or even WordPress.com), care what email address someone uses to log in, once that email address is associated with an account. And you can definitely create Tumblr-style sites with either platform. If you use self-hosted WordPress, you have even more options for adding features to your site thanks to plugins. There’s at least one plugin that will import all your Tumblr posts into your WordPress site, keeping them intact.

This really wasn’t a necessary move on the part of Tumblr. There’s no technical reason why someone’s email host should matter. A lot of these people have probably had these email addresses for a very long time, and to ask them to go get another one from somewhere like Gmail just so they can log into and use your service is wrong on every level.

First, a working analogy for blocks

Those of you who were around in the pre-Web 2.0 era (before 2005-ish) will remember that early bloggers used to have a list of other blogs they read in their sidebars. That list was known as the “blogroll” and it was a great way for newbies to get to know established bloggers. The other neat thing about the blogroll was that it was a token of respect to the bloggers you admired.

–RICHARD MACMANUS, AltPlatform

Blogrolls used to be a thing in WordPress, except WordPress refered to them as “Links”, and you managed them using the Links Manager. I think there’s still a working plugin for this, and if you’re like me and you’ve had a long-running WordPress installation, the links manager is still in your administration panel. I think blogrolls got an amused mention last weekend at WordCamp Europe as well, but I have to agree with the post I’m quoting. they were a fun part of the web, and I’m thinking that, they really should be brought back. I used to have quite a full blogroll, and yes, I made a point of reading most of them every day. Mine specifically didn’t have a lot of news sites on it, just blogs, mostly personal ones. I’m not saying that news sites couldn’t be listed, (the cool thing about blogrolls was that you could list whatever you wanted, and other people could see what you were reading), but I always liked to keep mine more personal and less edited.

There’s a site called WPRoll that I think still lives, but it seems to be more of a list of influencers. There is, however, an OPML file you can get that has all the blogs, that you can then import into your RSS reader. I’ve done this, and for the time being I’m using the WordPress.com reader, because it’s the most accessible one that I’ve found that I can also use on my phone.

But yes, we should definitely bring blogrolls back. The web, and the world, could use a little more let’s-get-to-know-each-other, and that’s what blogrolls provided.