RE: Guild of Accessible Web Designers starts membership drive

 Hi John,

Thanks for checking out the site. At the moment the markup validates agains
the chosen DOCTYPE (although the DOCTYPE used will probably change shortly,
as this is an area of heated debate), and for those who will be checking it
against Bobby it is AAA approved (although that doesn't mean it is
definately accessible).

Unfortunately I did introduce a few HTML errors when adding the news to the
home page about the launch - but these have now been fixed. All comments are
of course welcome; please e-mail any typos, or errors you find on the site
directly to me, and I will try to get them fixed.

This website design is really just a draft - so please don't be too critical
of it; I know it isn't a fantastic design. Please join the Guild and make
your talents available so that we can have a website that reflects the
aspirations of the organisation. It is a membership organisation - and will
will stand or fall on the enthusiasm, skills and commitment of the members. 

In relation to the design, the intention is to (very soon) have an open
competition to create a design that reflects the message of the Guild. The
design as it stands at the moment will be replaced within the next couple of
weeks with an alternative (though still temporary) design that a current
member is putting together now.

There is no need to stand on the sidelines explaining why you think it is
not good - please join, sort out the problems as you see them, and help to
ensure that we raise each others skills and end up with more websites that
are accessible.

You can join from this page:
http://www.gawds.org/admin/members/agreement.php

All the best,
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: John Colby
To: tina@greytower.net; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Sent: 12/1/03 1:35 PM
Subject: RE: Guild of Accessible Web Designers starts membership drive

On 2 Dec Tina wrote

On  1 Dec, Pat Byrne wrote:

> The Guild of Accessible Web Designers 'went public' today. Although
the
> Guild is not ready for an official launch, they are looking for new
> members who are interesting in helping to develop the organization.
The
> intention is to launch officially some time in early 2004.

 > Wonderful news.

 > I have only two questions, if I may.

 > 1 - Why are there 14 validation errors on the GAWDs front page ?

   > 2 - When they say, quote, "completed an approved Accessible Web
        Design course."; which courses are approved, and by whom ?

I also have two questions.

Has anyone proofread the pages to pick up errors such as :

V alidate you site <http://valet.gawds.org/> | and  5. GAWDS.org
believes that 'accessible web design is good for business"; both for
designers/developers, and for clients looking to build new websites, or
improve existing websites. 

And why does it fail the Cynthia test with
 
11.2 Avoid deprecated features of W3C technologies. 
Rule: 11.2.1 - Identify the use of one or more deprecated elements or
attributes within the document. 
Failure - Document uses one or more deprecated elements or attributes.
The document contains the element: body with the deprecated attribute:
bgcolor
 
This, unfortunately, does not inspire me with confidence.
 
John
 
John Colby 
Lecturer, School of Computing, Faculty of Computing, Information and
English 
Room F328a, Feeney Building, University of Central England, 
Franchise Street, Perry Barr, Birmingham B42 2SU 
Tel: +44 (0) 121 331 6937, Fax +44 (0) 121 331 6281, Mobile: 0771 114
1621

Received on Monday, 1 December 2003 09:18:20 UTC