[games_access] SIG update!

[d. michelle hinn]

Thanks Mark -- and it's been wondering having AbleGamers and all the 
other groups working with us to get the message across to not just 
the industry but to also share what we know with gamers, hospitals, 
rehab units and more!

I'm writing a short piece on Games for Health and how great it was to 
really see all the diversity of stories, research, perspectives that 
we took away from that day. Sorry, everyone, that it's taken me a 
little longer than I would have like to get that up on AbleGamers but 
it will be up there end of week at the latest! I thank you for giving 
the SIG such a great outlet for stories about GA news! Sure, 
Gamasutra's out there but it's mostly for the developer community and 
you guys have been such a blessing to have in order to reach the 
potential consumer. I hope everyone considers writing up some pieces 
for AbleGamers -- it's nice to have an "in" with a news site just 
about GA. Gives Barrie and I (although Barrie has been my go to guy 
with the IGDA blog -- and I greatly appreciate that!) stuff to point 
out on our blogs.

I feel like there's a great energy and comradery right now and I want 
to make sure we keep that energy going!

So thanks to you and everyone for your support as I fight the IGDA 
stuff that is not warmly welcomed by a number of SIGs. I feel great 
that other SIG chairs are also fighting this change. It's mainly 
meant to "add value" to being an IGDA member but you can still have 
free accounts...it's just that some SIGs will decide not to keep 
their doors open and I want to keep all our stuff open but this 
non-googling stuff...that's just not a good idea! In my opinion, more 
people have joined the IGDA after joining some of the SIGs like ours 
that are about outreach and they found us via google. So those 
archives are really meaningful.

At any rate, everyone, rest assured -- plans are underway to make 
sure we have basic info on the IGDA site but then have another site 
that all of our information is on that is google-able and such 
WITHOUT the need to log in for every single thing. And thank you 
again, Mark, for helping with designing a nice new web site. I'm sure 
it will be fantastic and your web skills are GREATLY appreciated.

[Psst -- I'm not sure a lot of you know this but Mark has a doctorate 
in music performance so we have another musician amongst us. Do we 
enough for a SIG band? I think we just might!]

Anyway...Fight!!!! :)

Michelle

>Michelle
>
>Thank you for all your hard work, you are doing a great job for the 
>sig. I am glad you are on our side.
>
>Please know that you have many here that will do what needs to be 
>done to further the cause.
>
>Fight!
>
>Mark Barlet, DMus
>AbleGamers.com
>
>Message sent via mobile device.
>
>On May 20, 2008, at 5:34 PM, "d. michelle hinn" <hinn at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>>Hi everyone,
>>
>>No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Instead I've been 
>>fighting the IGDA along with a lot of other SIG chairs over their 
>>new web system that will "do away" with this list in favor of a 
>>list that goes with the new web system. The thing is? Every single 
>>person on this list will have to individually sign up as users of 
>>this new system before they can sign up for the list. Non-paying 
>>members will have all access to our SIGs stuff (other SIGs have 
>>chosen this as well) so it's not a payment issue. But the new 
>>system WILL NOT be google-able (I think I just made that word up).
>>
>>Another issue is that we will lose our list archives to date. Not 
>>good. So many of us are having to save our archives to post on our 
>>wikis, etc, etc, etc
>>
>>Anyway, it's a VERY nasty battle at the moment and we HAVE to 
>>change to this system. And, no, I have no clue what it even looks 
>>like yet -- remember that system that was supposed to "roll out" 
>>last summer? Well, it's now "next summer" only they intend to make 
>>this change hyper fast.
>>
>>Anyway, a few other SIG chairs and I are fighting to stay off the 
>>system and it's taking up a lot of time. Being a part of the IGDA 
>>gives us a lot of street cred with developers and we cannot lose 
>>that. But as we know...a lot of our list members are not 
>>developers. So we're fighting the good fight now. As I said, 
>>several other SIG chairs are furious about this so we'll see where 
>>we go from here. I'll keep you up to date as I learn more.
>>
>>And as soon as I can, I will schedule online meetings for the 
>>summer so we can reconnect using MSN and we can talk about our 
>>current projects and our plans for the near and distant future 
>>(yes, that includes the book!).
>>
>>Don't worry -- we will still exist. That's not in jeopardy. It's 
>>just this pain in the neck online system that we're trying to 
>>fight. And do I know if it's accessible? No...as I said, I haven't 
>>even seen it yet.
>>
>>Sigh. Anyway...onward to bigger and better things and hopefully 
>>this listserv stuff will go away because it's a REALLY bad idea to 
>>move active lists in a non-automated way.
>>
>>So let's get back to talking about game accessibility! :D
>>
>>Michelle
>>
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