One time I went to a job interview and when they called my name, I stood up and the woman who was supposed to interview me flat out refused to go ahead with the interview. "Blind people can't use computers," she said. After that I started bringing along a laptop so I could show the web servers and web apps I was responsible for. Anyway, I think if you want to do this you should just go ahead. Just be aware that it is going to be next to impossible to get buy-in from the blindIT professional community. You are almost certainly going to have to do everything yourself. One of the groups that tried something like this in the past got some buy-in by having an IT Professional Of the Month thing. It wasn't really an award. They just picked someone to talk about every month and did a profile of them. At least those people were engaged for a month. It's a win-win because the honoree can put on his resume that he was the IT Professional Of the Month and your web site gets some attention. I was part of a group that put something like this together maybe 15 or 20 years ago. We did it for the same reasons you talk about. We got 501C3 status and everything. We raised over $10,000 in donations the first year. But even that group died out for lack of interest. Oh, we got a lot of suggestions. You should do this or you should do that. But nobody seemed to want to actually do anything. Having said that though, if you need any help, you can count on me. On 2/24/26 5:03 PM, Samuel Barnes via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
The overhead is part of the point. In addition to the stated purpose of being a hub for blind professionals, this is supposed to act as a portfolio that I can show to potential employers. If you'll forgive my bluntness, most people don't think we can wipe our own butts, let alone manage IT infrastructure. I build the system, design the network, host the services, manage backups, all that stuff.
As for why not a subreddit, I also address this in my first post. I don't like centralized social media, and the decentralized platforms that seek to replace them still ape their format, which quickly sweeps old content away no matter how relevant and topical it is. That's why I'm aiming for a forum rather than something like Lemmy or Piefed.
On Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 7:33 AM Chris Turner via Blind-sysadmins < blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> wrote:
How about a sub Reddit? Granted concerns about using mainstream social media. Facebook and or WHatsapp would be a terrible idea for various reasons IMO. Not least being able to effectively search and copy information.
A dedicated site with accessible forum software would be great but then you're looking at more overheads, time, money and what happens when the administrator wants to stop paying or give it up.
Regards
Chris Turner -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Hodgson via Blind-sysadmins <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: 23 February 2026 10:38 To: Mailing list for blind system administrators <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Cc: Andrew Hodgson <andrew@hodgson.io> Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Re: Would anyone be interested in a blind professionals forum?
Hi.
There have been a few attempts to do this before, most haven't gone anywhere. However I don't see that as a reason for not trying. I have often wondered what a successor to this mailing list would look like, as I realise it's a bit outdated now. I think even young blind professionals have moved away from email these days.
Andrew.
-----Original Message----- From: Samuel Barnes via Blind-sysadmins <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: 23 February 2026 01:53 To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Cc: Samuel Barnes <samuellbarnes@gmail.com> Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Would anyone be interested in a blind professionals forum?
I'm thinking of spinning up an instance of nodeBB to serve as a forum for blind people working in fields not traditionally associated with the blind or for blind people seeking employment outside the "blind employment ghetto" (you know, O&M instructor, VI or special ed teacher, government case worker, lawyer, musician, etc.)
This would host discussions about adaptive strategies for blind professionals in specialized fields, advocacy for blind people in the workforce, and just commiseration.
IT industry topics like those discussed on this mailing list would be a subset of these discussions.
I also have two ulterior motives for doing this. First, I really like traditional forums as a platform and think nodeBB is a promising successor to the venerable (and surprisingly still around) phpBB. I'd like to have other blind folks use it day to day and provide the devs with feedback on how to make it more accessible.
Second, as I mentioned in a previous email, all my certs are expiring next month, and I'm too exhausted to try to renew them. Adminning (and possibly self-hosting) this forum would serve as a personal portfolio of sorts, something I can show potential employers to demonstrate I know what the heck I'm doing. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org
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