Re: PICS and accessibility

Other than a boolean rating like, i.e. "this site does/does not 
contain pornography," it is extremely difficult to devise a rating 
system in which two people answer the same way, and probably even
more so with accessibility since there are so many different
definitions of it. I suspect that if we are to try and create a 
PICS based accessibility rating system, it needs to encompass both a 
human judgement of accessibility AND an automated judgement of 
accessibility. Does anyone know of examples where people 
have actually created a PICS rating system and applied it
by automated or human methods to rating large numbers of sites?
I wonder what some of the experiences are.

As far as restricting access by an automated tool, that's what search
engines do.

BTW, This is a good discussion for the ratings and certification
group. 

+ Josh +

Mike Burks wrote:
> 
> I don t think that any automated tool alone can make that kind of judgement.
> Anything that restricts the flow of information is pernicious as far as I am
> concerned.  To me the first level of accessibility is being able to get to
> the site...if the tool says NOPE this site is not accessible, does that mean
> that valuable information is not there?
> 
> Anything that automatically restricts access to information chills me to my
> soul.  The expostulations that I am being paranoid do not comfort me in the
> least.  The weight of historical evidence supports the conclusion that
> censorship in any form is not a good thing.
> 
> Sincerely
> Mike Burks
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
> To: WAI Interest Group <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> Date: Tuesday, January 20, 1998 1:23 AM
> Subject: PICS and accessibility
> 
> >It may be of interest, given that PICS is under discussion, to note that
> >there has been some consideration of its use as a means of labeling web
> >sites with respect to their degree of accessibility to people with
> >disabilities. How useful do members of this group think that such labels,
> >particularly if they were made by a party other than the creator of the
> >site, would be to people with disabilities? Would it be helpful to have
> >the option of restricting search engines or other tools just to sites
> >which possess a high accessibility rating? What other applications of PICS
> >content labels would be useful in the area of accessibility? Should the
> >WAI develop a PICS labeling system with which web sites could be
> >classified?
> >
> >
> >

Received on Wednesday, 21 January 1998 08:39:15 UTC