universal accessibility

>>>That's impossible unless
>>> we get every member of the department to make their personal pages
>>> accessible.

>>That's the idea...
>>Charles McCN

>It's a good idea, but impractical for the relatively near
>future.                                   ^^^^^^^^^^ 
                                     Well, we are the relativity group :-)

>--Kynn, who likewise works at a university

	I think it's important to make the distinction between
official department and research group pages and individual user
pages.  It is conceivable but unlikely that a department could decree
that all of their pages had to pass HTML and Bobby validation, but
it's impossible to get all of the users to validate their individual
pages, since the department doesn't monitor their content in any other
way.

	At any rate, if one controls a subpace of a web server which
could be reasonably called a "site", and all of those pages pass
Bobby, it's a Good Thing (TM) to be able to put a "Bobby approved"
icon on them, since readers who also happen to be authors will see it,
perhaps wonder what it means, follow the link and become exposed to a
set of issues they might not have thought of

	The discussion of the legal/ADA arguments surronding
accessibility has brought up the question of what constitutes a
service.  In the case of individual user pages, we're way out of the
realm of services and into personal expression.  And if someone chooses
to express themselves via bad HTML, that's their right in the US.

					John T. Whelan
					whelan@iname.com
					http://www.slack.net/~whelan/

Received on Wednesday, 19 August 1998 18:06:36 UTC