Thread by @knit1_purl2

@mloeks @ravelry First, I will say that if someone came to me in May of last year and said "This website causes migraines," I probably would have silently rolled my eyes, thinking "Yeah, sure." Start of a long thread...1/?

But last June Ravelry re-designed their website. I logged on the first morning of the new design...my first thought was "This is really white." I played around a bit and after 15 minutes realized I had a nasty headache. I get headaches often so I didn't think much of it. 2/?

Got off the ipad and took some aspirin.

Later that day, headache gone, I took another look. This time, within 10 minutes I felt a headache coming on and I realized that all the muscles around my eyes were tight and tense. 3/?

At that point I went to For Love of Ravelry and saw posts from many people saying, "This is bad. It's giving me headaches." It had even caused someone to have a seizure (which resulted in her losing driving privileges for 6 months). 4/?

Within a couple of days, Rav's owners had made some small changes and I found that I could now spend more time...although I still found it hard on my eyes. I found it hard to believe that such small changes made a difference and wondered if I was imagining the whole thing. 5/?

So I started reading. There are tons af articles out there about accessibility and I wish now I could find the one I read that said that even small changes can make a website less harmful. 6/?

So, when people now say, "Ravelry causes me to have migraines," I don't roll my eyes. I believe them.

And if you still can't find it in your heart to believe people when they say Ravelry causes them pain, ask yourself this... 7/?

What do these people have to gain from saying this? The answer is...nothing. We've lost. Whether we're not on Rav because it harms us or because we are so angry and hurt by the way the owners have behaved, we've lost. 8/?

Some people have lost income and business. All of us have lost a source of knitting patterns and inspiration. We've lost friends and acquaintances that provide a welcome bit of sociability. We've lost faith in the owners of Ravelry. 9/?

People are not lying about this. Ravelry's site has serious problems, the owners refuse to be open about what, if anything, they are doing to solve those problems, they have refused offers of help, they delete questions as fast as they are posted...it's disgraceful. 10/10