Re: Indexing

At 07:57 AM 12/24/00 -0500, Marti wrote:
>not an accessibility issue

Don't be too sure about that until you've "walked in their shoes" a bunch. 
Most of my experience with "disability issues" had (historically) to do 
with DRM (Disability Rights Movement) activism and the general "world of 
the blind". However, now I am in (or at least rapidly entering) one of the 
"conditions of disability" myself and as I 
age/deteriorate/wisen/mellow/dizzify/+ I find that one of the major things 
that makes the Web difficult/frustrating/opaque/off-putting/+ is the almost 
complete absence of an index to it. I'm on here so in a sense it's not 
"impossible" - but my senility hasn't moved from "creeping" to "blossoming" 
just yet.

One way to look at it is whether indexing would make it possible to use the 
Web for people with certain conditions rather than whether absence of 
indexing makes it impossible. It is because of this POV that I opted to 
propose P1 for this matter.

Like those of us who say "why don't they just learn to read?" about some 
group, we may be in danger of failing to be sufficiently cognizant of the 
fact that metadata is fully as important as the data about which it *is*.

Using "word search" engines to locate anything, let alone collate stuff is 
a craft/art/skill/+ reserved not for those with training in computer 
science but in "data search" methods. So - are old folks to be denied 
access to this incredible resource because its parts are scattered randomly 
throughout cyberspace? I hope not and am doing what little I can to use the 
WAI "tail" to wag the W3C "dog" to force immediate 
recommendations/standards/guidelines/+ to implement prolific indexing of 
the elements of the Web, which *should* be a major step in getting the 
entire thing *accessible* to those who are or will become beset with the 
aging process - in fact, as Gregg is fond of saying "by the way, how are 
you feeling now that you're getting older?"

--
Love.
                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE

Received on Sunday, 24 December 2000 13:15:58 UTC