RE: Bulk use of [free] accessibility checkers (don't)

I totally agree with Al here and I would add this, the Late Len Kasday
pointed out over and over that no tool can completely check anything for
accessiblity.  It takes human Intervention.  It takes someone who knows what
they are doing to check the results of the tools.

Also Bobby can  be downloaded from CAST. Al is right, you use this tool from
the web for large projects and no one else can use it.  I have had it happen
to me.

Al is also right in saying people should not expect to get a good analysis
for free.  Tbese things take time  and skill.  To expect to get it for free
is totally unrealistic.

Sincerely,

Mike Burks
Webmaster and Public Information Officer
www.icdri.org



-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Al Gilman
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 12:25 PM
To: Brian Kelly; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Cc: chitchcock@cast.org
Subject: Re: Bulk use of [free] accessibility checkers (don't)


At 08:15 AM 2001-08-03 , Brian Kelly wrote:
>I am currently carrying out a benchmarking survey of a selection of Web
>sites. The survey will look at measures such as the size of entry
>points,  quality of HTML, WAI compliance, etc.  I will be using
>Web-based tools, so that the method can be seen by all.  I'll also be
>using freely-available Web services, so anyone can try the survey for
>themselves.

There is a question of business justice, here.  It is not fair to rely on
the
free Web-interactive services such as Bobby at CAST for survey purposes. 

Bulk work such as surveys should be performed with resources provided by the
activity doing the survey.  This is partly where our clunky 'robot control'
system came from.  There have been problems with U.S. activities bringing
the
free over-the-Web Bobby service to its knees in a de_facto denial-of-service
attack by putting production loads on the web-published service.  Use the
free
service for samples, please.  Not for surveys or other production runs.

Those who wish to survey should reasonably expect to pay.  There is no
excuse
for assuming that people will render you great gobs of service for free.
That
which is appropriately _de rien_ is in the eye of the service provider, not
receiver.

Al

Received on Friday, 3 August 2001 12:36:33 UTC