More advice on running inclusive and welcoming events
Last year, I wrote a blog post with my ideas for running inclusive conferences. I was thrilled by the number of people who read, shared, or gave me feedback and suggestions. I kept all the suggestions in a text file, but I never quite got around to writing an updated post.
Just before the weekend, I sent a link to the post in a reply to this tweet by Ada Powers:
If you have the spoons, tell me about the conference accessibility fails you’ve witnessed or experienced. Can cover disability, MH, and related concerns. (Name names if you want, but I’m primarily soliciting feedback to help others from making the same mistakes.)
Her original tweet got a huge response (so many good replies), and sent a spike of traffic to my old blog post. I realised it was time to update it properly, so I dusted it off and wrote a new version. You can read my updated advice at https://alexwlchan.net/ideas-for-inclusive-events/.
The new version includes:
- Lots of suggestions and corrections that were sent in for the first version
- A proper acknowledgements page for all the conferences and people who’ve given me ideas for the list
- A summary section. The original post was 6.5k words, and the new one is nearly 9k. That’s a lot of words, and the summary lets you get the core ideas without reading the whole thing.
- Source code on GitHub: https://github.com/alexwlchan/ideas-for-inclusive-events
- A pleasant green theme
And because it’s no longer a point-in-time snapshot (like a blog post), I’m hoping to update this version a little more regularly.