Re: Professional communication / Keeping emotions in check

Among the legitimate criticism , I have been called out for calling attention to things that may be considered discriminatory.

DO we think pointing this out is inappropriate? Surely reducing accommodation for reasons that may be considered discriminatory against users with cognitive disabilities (or low vision or any other disability) is an extremely important and relevant issue. We may disagree on whether specific arguments are in fact discriminatory.  (Is it legitimate to say we should not try to accommodate people who can not understand the language on a page?) but it is an important issue for us to discuss. 


If we can not call them out we run the risk of accepting these arguments without challenging their legitimacy. If we decide to do that I think it should be a consensus  decision. Personally, I think when we are discussing to include or exclude an SC, arguments that have a significant  discriminatory aspect should not be accepted  in wcag.


That said it does not imply that anyone who makes these arguments are bad people etc. We are used to thinking of people with cognitive disabilities as outside our target audience or circles and it will be a difficult road to change these attitudes, including inside ourselves.

All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter





---- On Thu, 29 Jun 2017 20:04:51 +0300 Andrew Kirkpatrick<akirkpat@adobe.com> wrote ---- 

  AGWG’ers,
 Thanks to all for their ongoing work on WCAG 2.1. It is difficult and important work, and often tests our intellects, energy, and patience.
 
 
 I firmly believe that everyone is participating in the group because he or she believes that our work can improve accessibility to web content. Naturally, not everyone has the same expectations about how dramatically WCAG 2.1 can impact end-users, whether we will be able to add nine new success criteria or 40. 
 
 
 We need to be able to have reasonable and appropriate conversation in email and on the teleconferences. People should expect to be able to be heard, and if anyone feels that they are not they should let Josh/Michael/me know. Similarly, people need to let others state their piece. 
 
 
 On the call today we had a level of interruption and raised voices that did not meet the behavioral expectations for group participation. We will reach out to the group members involved to discuss this, but want to remind all members of the importance of holding ourselves to a high standard of professional communication.
 
 
   Thanks,
 AWK
 
 
 Andrew Kirkpatrick
 Group Product Manager, Accessibility
 Adobe 
 
 
 akirkpat@adobe.com
 http://twitter.com/awkawk