[raving-richard]

Yes you are supposed to cater to the 2%. Wolfram Alpha says 2% of the US population is 6.39 million people. That's how many potential people from just one country you are treating badly. And as for screen reading users, that's just another 2% isn't it (or another "tiny" number). Why do you care about them? Well, it is the law, but, it's also just sensible.

Also, people browse with poor Internet connections, and even if they have JS enabled, the JS might time-out before it downloads, and so they'll just have to see your content without it.

I browse without JS on most sites (and I need a good reason to enable it) for at least the following reasons:

1. It's safer for me.

2. I've lived and will live in places with really shit Internet connections.

3. It also conveniently gets rid of a bunch of crap (flashing stuff, ads, flashing ads, etc.) without me having to do anything specifically.

4. It blocks some tracking across the Internet (I also use RequestPolicy to really drive that message home).

Other reasons as well. Edit: including it's too often used for unnecessary fan-inducing overly-CPU using shit.

So you don't want me as a potential visitor? A tech-savey person? I'm not your target audience? That's OK, there's loads of other sites on the web, and I'm sure that yours is crap anyway. After all, if it wasn't crap, you'd have made it work without JS.

Edit: And if you are stupid enough to not be able to make your site work without JS, then at least put a noscript message explaining why your site is special enough to require JS, and why I shouldn't just close the tab and go to the next site. If you explain that it is necessary to make the froggles boggle, I'll think about it more than if you just say "you need to enable JavaScript or upgrade your browser". No, fuck you, I don't need to enable JS, you need to make your site work without it. Displaying text and images in no way requires JS, unless you're a real thicko who shouldn't be allowed to have any commit privileges.

[marcus_holmes]

wow, that's really hostile. Why are you so angry about this?

[raving-richard]

Because people go and make sites that don't work with JS. Even though often it's /more/ work to make the site not-work with JS. And then they justify it by saying "well it's only 1 or 2 percent". It's not hard. And then "professionals" (like the OP) think that everyone has the latest fancy computer with super fast Internet (there are developed countries with rubbish Internet connections, let alone the less-developed countries that often share a single megabit per second for the whole country).

It's like people saying "well blind people, they don't even count, like who cares about accessibility anyway?". Fuck those people.

It's like the people who think it's just fine and dandy to have Google Analytics and Facebook trackers, and all the rest. Even when they should know better! You're contributing to a worse society by giving these companies so much power!

Next these young white men will wonder why anyone cares if someone jokes about "raping some bitch". I mean it's just a joke right? It's not serious. Why are you getting so up tight. Geeze, women. PC is just going too far.

And I guess this is just for your. Because this has dropped of the front-page. I think I need to go back to /., which while awful in it's own way, doesn't have men too young to shave asking stupid questions.

[marcus_holmes]

Slightly hilarious, because /. is full of men too young to shave asking stupid questions.

I'm not asking a question about style or sites, or use of JS. I'm asking about your anger. Are you really this angry over stuff? I have a lot of experience with mental health issues and raging at the world because it doesn't behave the way you'd like it to is a sure-fire path to any one of a number of disorders.

I'm not going to tell you to calm down, because that's patronising. But maybe you could take a look at your anger and ask yourself why you're so angry (without blaming it on other people's behaviour).