I know I don’t actually have any readers out there, but if I did, I would hope that they had heard at least something off the noise surrounding Ravelry.
In June of 2020, with little warning (there was a “teaser” posted on the twitter account), a new design was launched for Ravelry that made major changes to the look and feel of the site. In addition to having specific esthetic characteristics, it caused a lot of people to have a range of effects, from minor (eye strain) to major (chronic migraine, seizure).
Within a week, the possibility existed to “go back” to Classic Ravelry, except that it’s not really Classic Ravelry, it’s New Ravelry filtered through some sort of overlay.
Not very long after that, the mod-hammers came out. Post a rave about the new look? We’re all good. Post in the Big 6 about problems you were having with the site? Thread is locked and archived as soon as a mod sees it, posts are hidden, etc.
People are told it’s all in their heads, the effects are not linked to the new look, how on earth could they be? Many many people have tested various aspects of the accessibility of the site, and, well, it’s not.
Because the LIVE SITE ARCHITECTURE was changed, not a development site, the changes can’t be rolled back.
Really, this is serious. Imagine you’ve just taken in an airplane, and now you discover that the av engineer is down in the hold running calculations to see whether the gear will support the landing. You don’t play with the architecture of the live site, and when you launch the NEW site, you set the old site aside so you can put things back the way they were if you need to.
Anyway… we were eventually told that Classic Ravelry would be sticking around for a defined time, then disappearing – New Rav or Nothing! Then the date was set, 31 March 2021.
The developers promised to fix the accessibility issues. Did they? No. They ran surveys about the esthetics of the new site, but not the accessibility; they ran surveys about accessibility THAT WERE NOT ACCESSIBLE; they promised to hire accessibility support and didn’t; they ignored the Ravelry volunteers who came out of the woodwork to help them with their accessibility issues.
Things continued in this vein. Threads were locked, problems were denied. Designers who suddenly started selling elsewhere (Payhip, Lovecrafts) had the links to their off-Ravelry stores changed or deleted by specific mods.
Then there was an article in the New Yorker in mid-March 2021 that presented the view that these problems were all silly and how on earth could they possibly be related to Ravelry? Any mention of that article in the Big 6 apparently gets the culprit banned from the Big 6, and the thread gets immediately locked and archived.
Gaslighting reigns supreme.
I have been on Ravelry since… 2004? My Ravelry number is somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000, I think right around 54k. I have contributed pattern entries to the database. I have answered questions. I have left comments on yarns and patterns. I have bought patterns – lots of patterns! – on Ravelry.
I have not spent a single red cent on Ravelry since I think August of last year. If I want a pattern, I buy it elsewhere.
I have not logged into Ravelry since about 25 March 2021. At this point, I am not likely to go back.
Let’s not forget what Ravelry is. Ravelry is a database fed and maintained by volunteers. Volunteers enter patterns into the database, answer questions, leave comments on yarns and patterns. It is THE place to go for information these days. But beyond that, our fees support Ravelry – when we buy patterns, a sales fee goes to Ravelry. When we surf, the ad fees go to Ravelry.
But a lot of people can’t use Ravelry, and have been effectively locked out of Ravelry, told they and their observations are “silly’, and told that they ARE NOT WANTED.
Guess what. Ravelry is not wanted around here. I apologize for any links from this blog to Ravelry, and I’ll be cleaning them up at some point.
Until Ravelry acknowledges the harm it has done, apologizes for it, makes Classic Ravelry available permanently, and makes even Classic Ravelry accessible, I am done with Ravelry.
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