I received permission from Nimer regarding the following
letter:
Hello NVDA community,
First, I hope you are staying safe and
healthy.
One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an
NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum
platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that
span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an
international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons,
moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate
lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In
the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the
community, and that golden opportunity has come:
On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to
master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at
California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors
(summa cum laude) from the same university.
After observing discussions between graduate students and
thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate
teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest
of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate
(college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and
coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As
much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget
my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking
coach.
Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions,
effective September 1, 2021. This means:
- I do have work to finish
which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this
summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
- I’m handing over most of
my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan
to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is
needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is
needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to
keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
- For NVDACon attendees and
organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in
NVDACon for a while.
- For add-ons community, I
will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer
(details will be sent to add-ons list).
Several thank you’s:
- Mick and Jamie: for
starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a
movement, which endures today.
- NV Access staff, past and
present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group
work.
- Mesar Hameed: for
teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons
website was ready for the world in 2013.
- Many NvDA users and
enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean
blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and
outreach nine years ago.
- Many translators: for
helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in
2012.
- Thousands of users: for
teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless
other venues.
- Nimer and NVDA Users list
moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful
advice.
- For users of my add-ons:
countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after
analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things
that made add-ons useful to this day.
- NVDA supporters outside
this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
- Microsoft engineers and
fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn
from.
- Folks from Mozilla,
Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and
colleagues.
One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You
can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what
others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation
with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people
online.
Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward
to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is
calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility
advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what
not.
Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite
resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if
you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask
others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your
life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one
venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate
tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech
tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA
project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national
speech tournament.
Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves
onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial
intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school
and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about
baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind
students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments,
and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to
coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this
speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor
and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college
student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other
communities).
Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many
lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a
difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a
volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and
healthy.
Sincerely,
Joseph S. Lee
NVDA Certified Expert, 2019
Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons
reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September
2021)
Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference
(NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)
Member, NVDA Council
Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to
2016)
