WCAG 2.0 -> 3 - Bottom Layer (Server Side Techniques)

I feel there is a section here that needs addressing, and yes, if others
feel it is relevant and warranted, I'll draft the material on it.  This is
addressing "server side techniques".

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#how-to

see

<WCAG2 version="W3C Working Draft 24 June 2003">
3 - Bottom layer - Technology-specific application information
The Techniques Documents will include code examples, screen shots, and other
information specific to a technology.  These documents will be
non-normative. They will contain different strategies for meeting the
requirements as well as the current preferred approaches where they exist.
Examples include:

* Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Extensible Hypertext Markup Language
(XHTML) Techniques
* Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Techniques
* Server-side scripting Techniques
* Client-side scripting Techniques
* Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Techniques
* Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) Techniques
* Extensible Markup Language (XML) Techniques

(These will become active links as the corresponding working drafts are
published)
</WCAG2>

I am not too sure what defines "Server-side scripting Techniques", but as a
web developer I understand that as anything on the server side that has to
do with programming or markup.  What that does not refer to is server
management and configuration techniques that address WCAG (and other
issues).  I feel there is a real need to add "Server Management Techniques"
into this list.

Why? Web sites can greatly improve accessibility and usability addressing
server configuration and management issues.

For instance; server side redirects/redirection.  See

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_alias.html#redirect

If the redirection is marked as permanent, and if the user requested the URL
for redirection from a bookmark, the user agent is supposed to update the
bookmark (I haven't looked at UAAG thoroughly, but this was always meant to
be the case in handling HTTP).

There are heaps of other server side techniques, like using mod_speling,
mod_rewrite, etc.

There is also the hugely underused and undervalued "Transparent content
negotiation" (TCN), see

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/content-negotiation.html

It's true that Netscape 2.0 destroyed this feature by getting that UA to
market as quickly as possible, and sending back any requests for browser
configs with "*.*" (ie - everything including the kitchen sink is installed
on this UA), but it is reasonably well supported these days.  Well enough to
build Web Services.

TCN becomes very important and far more sophisticated in XML content
delivery systems such as Apache/Cocoon (http://cocoon.apache.org/).  This is
something I am spending more time with and would be happy to try and deliver
some Techniques, etc for, later down the track.

Is there any value or point to addressing these as part of WCAG2 Techniques?

Geoff Deering