Re: Discussion: Accessibility Issues Procedure

On Sat, 25 Jul 2009, William Loughborough wrote:
> 
> The difference between this set of circumstances and the cited SVG/CSS 
> and other similar "battles" is that [...] there has been a 
> systematic/official discrimination against people with disabilities, 
> including really severe stuff like incarceration/sterilization/ 
> euthanasia.

As far as I'm aware, the only times where the WAI's feedback has not been 
taken and applied verbatim have been cases where there have been what 
appear to me to be reasonable doubts that the WAI's feedback would in fact 
be the most effective way of serving communities experiencing handicaps of 
relevant natures.

For example, in the case of summary="", the arguments against summary="" 
are in fact that providing the feature has demonstrably had minimal 
beneficial impact on disabled users and that providing the feature may in 
fact be continuing to effectively reduce the potential level to which 
tables are actually made accessible.

Obviously not everybody agrees, but all sides _do_ have the best interests 
of users of accessibility tools at heart -- it is merely over the 
technical aspects of potential solutions that people disagree.

Your e-mail makes it sound like you think there are members of the working 
group who are actively trying to harm accessibility of the Web. I find 
such accusations utterly ludicrous and highly unhelpful, and totally at 
odds with the actual discussions that have occured on this working group.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A
Things that are impossible just take longer.                 CAT GOES HERE

Received on Saturday, 25 July 2009 09:52:31 UTC