Issue Summary - Aggregated

There are 5 issues related to aggregation. Many of them have draft 
responses, but require a decision from the group about whether (and if 
so, how) conformance claims can be made for content that includes 
aggregate parts or user-contributed content.

Here are the issues:


      *Comment LC-464*

*Sort Terms:* AGGREGATED - should be exempt
*Document:* WCAG 2.0 Guidelines
*Submitter:* Jason White <jasonw@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au>
*Comment Type:* substantive
*Location:*  

*Comment:*
Item Number: Related Documents
Part of Item:
Comment Type: TE
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):

Conformance: Aggregated Content.

If content contains authored units that do not themselves carry any 
conformance claims, and those authored units are modified or substituted 
as a result of an aggregation process, then the conformance status of 
those authored units is unknown at any point in time unless individual 
assessments are carried out. Such assessments may be impractical, for 
example on sites that collect comments from the public, maintain e-mail 
archives, etc.

As the guidelines are currently drafted, the conformance of any Web unit 
containing such authored units depends in turn on the conformance of 
those authored units, which may vary over time. In order to avoid making 
false conformance claims, the operator of such a Web site would, 
presumably, have to exclude such Web units from the scope of any 
conformance claim, in accordance with the scoping provisions of the 
conformance section. I think this consequence needs to be clarified and 
stated explicitly.

Alternatively, the scoping provisions could be modified to allow 
individual authored units to be excluded from the ambit of a claim, but 
in that case it is by no means clear how the "authored units" could be 
precisely identified and specified in the claim.

Proposed Change:

Clarify that if it is unknown whether an authored unit participating in 
aggregation conforms to WCAG 2.0, or which level of conformance is 
achieved, then it is likewise unknown what, if any, level of conformance 
is attained by Web units in which it appears. Implementors should be 
advised to exclude Web units containing such "unknown" authored units 
from the scope of any conformance claim in accordance with the "scoping" 
provisions of the conformance section of WCAG 2.0.

Note that by controlling what may appear in authored units participating 
in the aggregation process, through technical or other means, it may be 
possible to ensure that a given level of conformance is always 
satisfied. Under these circumstances (where the conformance of resulting 
Web units is guaranteed), conformance claims with respect to such 
aggregated content may reliably be made.

*Status:* open

*Working Group Notes:* [TEAMA] [HOLD]

Discussed in the 16 May 2006 Team A call, proposal sent to list:
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2006AprJun/0189.html> 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2006AprJun/0189.html%3E>;

suggestions from WG Call
Author can also choose to provide "fail-safe" alternative content for 
included content of unknown conformance, just in case it doesn't comply. 
But overall, yes, authors should choose to include content of known or 
knowable conformance if they wish to claim conformance for a page.

Also, this overlaps with user input issue and needs to be reworded so 
that it doesnt cover that by mistake.

OLD PROPOSAL {needs rewriting - see above} (do not accept)
This comment is based on supposition that if content includes parts that 
have unknown accessibility, the author should not be responsible. This 
is not correct. The page either conforms or doesn't. The fact that parts 
change means the authors need to ensure that changing parts are 
accessible if they want to claim the web unit is accessible, not that 
they could scope them out and still claim access. The guidelines are 
written to reflect this, and that is the intent of the working group.

5/25/06 telcon
additional comments to consider in resolving this item (from survey)
- We may want to be sure that our conformance section makes this clear.
- I believe this is the issue that Alex Li raised a couple of weeks ago. 
Philosophically, I agree that a page cannot claim conformance if it 
contains authored units for which the conformance level is not known. 
However, this would mean that any Web page that contains a text entry 
field (such as this one) would not be able to claim conformance. In 
particular, 1.3.1, 2.4.4, and 3.1.2 would be difficult, if not 
impossible to meet.

We can't just say you just don't claim conformance for those pages. For 
one thing, we want developers to make the part they do control conform 
but they may not be motivated to do that if they can't, in the end, 
claim conformance. For another thing, if a government has a policy 
requiring conformance with WCAG Levels 1 and 2, does that mean that 
government websites cannot have pages with user contributed content such 
as this one?
- I think the other side of ths issue is that if we cave into the 
rational that corporations will not claim conformance, we may also 
notice that other competing standards are already emerging (ie European 
Union and the UK crowd) and are being adopted (or being considered) 
because they *do* require acessibility. I think various filtering 
techniques and algorithmes could overcome the issue of text based 
submitted comments like this page. I don't think this kind of text based 
filtering and fixing would be that difficult for large companies and 
governments that are on the cutting edge of technology. Perhaps even the 
rules for "text based documents" could be applied. If we let this go I 
think we are going to get scorched by the disability community and by 
the accessibility community and I am concerned our GL will be supplanted 
by other standards that at much more demandng than ours. I think we've 
all worked too hard and long to allow for that to happen.

*Resolution Working Notes - Unapproved:*
{parital accept}

@@ (same action for 1222) Add the following paragraph to the Section on 
Aggregated content in Conformance:

By controlling what may appear in aggregated authored units, it may be 
possible to ensure that a given level of conformance is always 
satisfied. Under these circumstances (where the conformance of resulting 
Web units is guaranteed), conformance claims with respect to such 
aggregated content may reliably be made.

@@ respond with
We have added the following paragraph to the section on aggregated content:

"By controlling what may appear in aggregated authored units, it may be 
possible to ensure that a given level of conformance is always 
satisfied. Under these circumstances (where the conformance of resulting 
Web units is guaranteed), conformance claims with respect to such 
aggregated content may reliably be made."

However, this comment seems to be based on supposition that if content 
includes parts that have unknown accessibility, then the author should 
not be responsible. This is not the position of the Working Group. 
Content either conforms or doesn't. The fact that parts change means the 
authors need to ensure that changing parts are accessible after they 
change if they want to claim the Web unit is accessible (note that they 
could scope them out and still claim access). The guidelines are written 
to reflect this.

Authors may also choose to moderate or otherwise monitor aggregated or 
contributed content for conformance to WCAG to ensure conformance.

*Related Issues:*
1222 <http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1222>
*Assigned To:* Nobody
*Last Edited:* 2006-08-08 20:16:11

**

------------------------------------------------------------------------


      *Comment LC-1168*

*Sort Terms:* Blinking aggregated
*Document:* WCAG 2.0 Guidelines
*Submitter:* Greg Lowney 
<gcl-0039@access-research.org>     *Affiliation:* Lowney Access 
Research, LLC
*Comment Type:* substantive
*Location:* time-limits-blink 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/complete.html#time-limits-blink> (Description)

*Comment:*
2.2.2 requires content to not blink for more than three seconds or a 
method be available to stop all blinking in the Web unit or authored 
component. Many Web sites display GIF images that are provided by a 
third-party (e.g. advertisements, or user-contributed photos); are such 
sites required to ensure that none of those are animated GIFs, in case 
some blink? Is it sufficient for the authors to define a baseline that 
includes user agents that allow the user to stop blinking on the current 
Web unit (e.g. pressing ESC)?

*Status:* open

*Working Group Notes:* [TEAMC] []

baselines are technologies not user agents.

The comment about third-party ads seems related to LC-1318.

*Resolution Working Notes - Unapproved:*

*Related Issues:*
1318 <http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1318>
*Assigned To:* Nobody
*Last Edited:* 2006-09-14 05:14:39

**

------------------------------------------------------------------------


      *Comment LC-1222*

*Sort Terms:* AGGREGATED CONFORMANCE
*Document:* WCAG 2.0 Guidelines
*Submitter:* Masafumi Nakane <max@wide.ad.jp>     *Affiliation:* Keio 
University
*Comment Type:* general comment
*Location:* conformance 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/complete.html#conformance> (Aggregated Content)

*Comment:*
Will these examples conform to WCAG? 1. A perfectly conforming blogsite, 
with comment form, and comments posted by someone breaks theconformance; 
2. The page is perfectly conforming, except for a fragmentof code which 
was provided by affiliate program of a shopping site, andthe user is not 
allowed to modify the code either for technical reasonsor for legal 
reasons. From the current wording of WCAG, these exampleslook to be not 
conforming to WCAG. This can limit the creativity andvariety in ideas 
for Web content if authors are keen to meet the WCAG,or else, let many 
authors decide not to care too much about theconformance.

Proposed Change:

Limit the responsibility of the content creator to those Web units 
thatare authored by the creators themselves.

*Status:* open

*Working Group Notes:* [TEAMA] [HOLD]

*Resolution Working Notes - Unapproved:*
{not accept}

@@ see 1222 for action items

@@ Respond with:
We have added the following paragraph to the section on aggregated content:

"By controlling what may appear in aggregated authored units, it may be 
possible to ensure that a given level of conformance is always 
satisfied. Under these circumstances (where the conformance of resulting 
Web units is guaranteed), conformance claims with respect to such 
aggregated content may reliably be made."

However, the suggestion that if content includes parts that have unknown 
accessibility, then the author should not be responsible is not the 
position of the Working Group. Content either conforms or doesn't. The 
fact that parts change means the authors need to ensure that changing 
parts are accessible after they change if they want to claim the Web 
unit is accessible (note that they could scope them out and still claim 
access). The guidelines are written to reflect this.

Authors may also choose to moderate or otherwise monitor aggregated or 
contributed content for conformance to WCAG to ensure conformance.

*Related Issues:*
464 <http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=464>
*Assigned To:* Nobody
*Last Edited:* 2006-08-10 22:58:06

**

------------------------------------------------------------------------


      *Comment LC-1318*

*Sort Terms:* AGGREGATED
*Document:* WCAG 2.0 Guidelines
*Submitter:* Takayuki Watanabe, Makoto Ueki, and Masahiro Umegaki 
<nabe@lab.twcu.ac.jp>     *Affiliation:* JIS WG2
*Comment Type:* general comment
*Location:*  (Aggregated Content)

*Comment:*
Comment: We think it is a good idea for WCAG 2.0 explaining how 
aggregated contents conform to WCAG because of their popularity. 
Aggregated contents must be considered carefully because such kinds of 
content have been increasing on the web. This paragraph, however, is 
difficult to understand: This paragraph deals with aggregated content, 
Web unit, authored units, and aggregated (authored) units, which terms 
and their differences are difficult. It is difficult to understand what 
'aggregated content' means. Thus, Good examples of aggregated content, 
Web unit, and authored units are needed.

In addition to that we can not understand the responsibility of Web 
authors and aggregated contents. We also can not understand how authors 
make a conformance claim to aggregated content.

*Status:* open

*Working Group Notes:* [TEAMA] [HOLD]

Discussed in the 10 August 2006 telecon:
Resolution: send 1318 back to Team A
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2006/08/10-wai-wcag-minutes.htm

10 August survey results:
http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/20060810teama/results#x1318

*Resolution Working Notes - Unapproved:*
@@ add links to "Web unit," and "authored unit" in aggregation section

Respond with:

We have added the following paragraph to the section on aggregated content:

"By controlling what may appear in aggregated authored units, it may be 
possible to ensure that a given level of conformance is always 
satisfied. Under these circumstances (where the conformance of resulting 
Web units is guaranteed), conformance claims with respect to such 
aggregated content may reliably be made."

The Working Group plans to develop additional materials related to 
conformance in conjunction with the education and outreach working group 
in the future.

*Related Issues:*
*Assigned To:* Nobody
*Last Edited:* 2006-08-10 22:59:20

**

------------------------------------------------------------------------


      *Comment LC-1332*

*Sort Terms:* LEVEL-CHANGE CAPTIONING AGGREGATED
*Document:* WCAG 2.0 Guidelines
*Submitter:* Arun Ranganathan <arunranga@aol.com>     *Affiliation:* 
Advisory Committee Representative to the W3C for AOL LLC
*Comment Type:* general comment
*Location:* media-equiv 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/complete.html#media-equiv> (Guideline 1.2 
Provide synchronized)

*Comment:*
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):

The purpose of the following LC Comment is to highlight issues that we 
believe warrant further consideration by the Web Content Accessibility 
working group before assigning a Level 1 requirement to Guideline 1.2.1: 
"captions are provided for prerecorded multimedia," particularly as the 
WAI's Web Content Accessibility guidelines are used as the benchmark for 
web accessibility by government and other policy-making bodies.

AOL LLC fully understands and supports the need for captioned 
multimedia, and we do provide the same on several of our highly 
trafficked areas. AOL was the first commercial Internet Service Provider 
to offer captioned video. Today, we provide captions for two cartoon 
series "Princess Natasha" and "SKWOD" on KOL, AOL's online channel for 
kids ages 6-12, and on video help tutorials developed for the AOL 9.0 
software. Additionally, we are currently testing delivery of captioned 
news and entertainment content through our video portal. We continue to 
work hard at this area, and plan on announcing further such developments 
as they take place.

Technologies such as SMIL, Microsoft's SAMI and Apple's QuickTime all 
enable display of closed captions on multimedia, and tools like Caption 
Keeper from the WGBH Media Access Group can be used to repurpose Line 21 
television caption data. However, AOL's research to date shows that the 
acquisition process and production model for the majority of video 
content distributed by commercial Internet portals such as AOL LLC does 
not support cost-effective and efficient processes for delivery of 
closed captions in a timely manner. A collaborative effort between the 
Internet industry, content producers and web accessibility experts is 
required to develop solutions before commercial web portals can fully 
conform to this Level 1 requirement to caption prerecorded multimedia. 
Guideline 1.2.1 assumes that the web site displaying the multimedia 
content is the producer of the content. What is not considered is the 
barriers created by the process of acquiring repurposed third party 
content, or who is responsible for captioning content produced by a 
third party and distributed via multiple web sites/services. While AOL 
LLC has made substantial progress towards captioning of our video 
content, there are three barriers inhibiting AOL LLC's goal of complete 
conformance to a Level 1 success criteria:

i. Internet production units of broadcast networks prepare the content 
for streaming before the content is captioned, usually in real time. For 
example, field packages produced for TV networks' nightly newscasts are 
often streamed before they air. As a result, Internet portals receive 
the video asset too far up stream in the content production workflow. 
This presents two possible scenarios:

- A content aggregator (Internet portal such as AOL's) needs to manually 
caption a video stream produced and owned by a separate content 
provider. Neither is this scalable, nor are vendor solutions robust 
enough at this point (e.g leveraging a programmed transcript which only 
provides the text of the audio, and excludes ambient sounds and time 
stamp data).

- Captions are added to the streaming video long after it has been 
published to the web site assuming the portal and partner repurpose the 
captions originally created during the TV broadcast. This is problematic 
as some videos have a very short shelf life.

ii. Lack of information on the whereabouts of existing caption files 
when broadcast content is repurposed for the Internet. There is an 
increasing amount of "video on demand" products online that allow people 
to view archives of current or old TV series, movies, music videos, 
short films, etc. It is very likely that most of the content has been 
captioned. Unfortunately there isn't a central database that Internet 
portals or content partners can search to locate the caption agency who 
captioned a particular season of a show. It is important to note that 
the content provider to the portal may not always be the content 
producer or the entity responsible for captioning the content for 
television.

iii. Need for a common delivery protocol. Commercial Internet portals 
receive video from many of the same content providers (broadcast 
networks, etc.). Internet production units are generally very small in 
terms of staff so delivering multiple text formats to multiple portals 
is not feasible. Solutions are required to ensure content providers can 
deliver caption data in an efficient, cost-effective manner. This is a 
solvable problem, but identifying solutions will require cooperation 
from many players.

AOL LLC proposes changing the Level 1 Success Criteria for Guideline 
1.2, namely 1.2.1 and 1.2.2, to Level 2 Success Criteria. This change 
reflects the ground realities of being a content aggregator on the Web. 
This proposal is necessitated by the current reality that content 
aggregators on the Web partner with multiple content providers. Issues 
such as who is responsible for producing captions, delivery of caption 
text files and other barriers described above must be addressed before 
policy-making bodies can effectively leverage this guideline. 
Alternatively, we recommend adding language which recognizes the current 
barriers to wide scale availability of captions for prerecorded 
multimedia, and encourages development of solutions to resolve them.

*Status:* open

*Working Group Notes:* [TEAMA] [HOLD]

BBC: I don't think this effects anything in the Aggregated category.

*Resolution Working Notes - Unapproved:*

*Related Issues:*
*Assigned To:* Nobody
*Last Edited:* 2006-08-08 16:32:16


-- 
Ben Caldwell | <caldwell@trace.wisc.edu> 
Trace Research and Development Center <http://trace.wisc.edu> 

Received on Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:38:54 UTC