Blind vs. mainstream distros

[Linux for blind general discussion]

I suspect the person's e-mail client just automatically quoted the
last message in the thread, and to be quite honest, I'd argue most
quoting on these lists is non-sensical, which is why I always uncheck
the "include quoted text" checkbox before starting to type a reply(as
an aside, if anyone knows how to change Gmail's default behavior to
not quote, I'd greatly appreciate it).

That said, I agree that you'd be hard pressed to find anything
everyone in the blind community has in common, but I think the
recognition of the community still has value. As unlikely as it is
that any two people will have the same set of experiences, if one is
dealing with a problem related to vision loss or a product designed
with sighted users in mind, I'd say you'd have better chances of
finding someone who has previously dealt with a similar problem and
can offer relevant advice. Not to say there isn't value in trying to
better educate the sighted on the realities of blindness and vision
loss, but it isn't always easy to get another to comprehend that
something they take for granted is a problem or to provide advice to
help another resolve a problem one finds trivial, and this perspective
gap can be quite profound whether we're talking blind and sighted, cli
user and gui user, professional and layperson, or any of a myriad of
other divisions one could make.

Universal Design and unity in diversity are great ideals to strive
for, but sometimes, practicality demands an in-group works for their
own betterment because the out group can't be motivated to help.

-- 
Sincerely,

Jeffery Wright
President Emeritus, Nu Nu Chapter, Phi Theta Kappa.
Former Secretary, Student Government Association, College of the Albemarle.