Re: W3C implicit endorsement of commercial products]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Judy Brewer wrote:

Thank you for your reply.

> For WAI-specific site issues you can post more directly to
> wai-site-comments@w3.org; however, site-comments (the address you posted
> to) also eventually gets to us.

Thanks.  Noted.

> We do not to my knowledge link to Bobby from WCAG 1.0. (See below.)

Indeed, my mistake (see below).

> We can find no link to Bobby from the WCAG 1.0 Guidelines at
>          http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/

I was citing the URL I know from memory, whereas in fact I meant to say

  http://http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORE-TECHS/core-techniques.html

to which I could have added other WAI pages such as

  http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/
  http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH/ (possibly)
  http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/techniques.htm
  http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2002/02/12-wcag20-requirements.html

Even more crucially, there is a Bobby reference in

  http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

which I suspect is worth more in advertising terms than I have ever
earned in 20 years professional software development.

> We will, however, review the WAI site within the next several weeks to 
> review the status of reference links to evaluation tools.

It takes a long time to undo the damage done when "Everyone Knows"
that the "Official Recommendation" is Bobby.  Some people take that
kind of legacy so seriously as to practice "affirmative action"
30 years after discrimination was outlawed.

-- 
Nick Kew

Received on Thursday, 12 September 2002 23:56:34 UTC