RE: New Guideline proposal

Anne,

different governments will make use of the guidelines in different ways. For
example, the Australian equivalent law does not specify which things should
be done (it is the responsibility of the provider of service - here the
website - to know their own field) but says that it is not legal to
discriminate against people by reason of disability.

The sort of guidelines that Bruce is suggesting will be readily adopted in US
508 law will not be the same ones that are required by Australian law, and
there are a whole range of other approaches in the differnt countries,
states, organisations and companies who refer to these guidelines.

It sweems to me that the most important thing we can do is describe how to
solve accessibility problems, and what that provides, and trust policy makers
to interpret the rqquirements of their specific area of responsibility using
the best information we can give them.

(obviously this is a short version, but I think many people have seen the
full rant enough <grin/>)

cheers

Chaals

On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Anne Pemberton wrote:

  Bruce,

  	If what you say is true, I seriously need to consider whether this is a
  good use of my time. My purpose for joining was to see tha the needs of
  cognitive and learning disabled folks were included in accessibility for
  the web, PARTICULARLY government sites. Now you say that if these people
  are included in the guidelines here, they are likely to be dis-included at
  another level.

  	I strongly disagree that this would not upset the politicians who vote for
  and against these measures. If they are informed (and the need seems to
  arise from what you are telling me), they may not be too happy to support a
  measure that deliberately dis-includes some disabled while proclaiming to
  be helping all.

  						Anne






  At 09:39 AM 4/2/01 -0400, Bailey, Bruce wrote:
  >     Dear Anne et al.    ""  If you want to see substantive provision for
  >cognitively disabled folks in an updated version of 508, you will need to
  >craft a standard that is unambiguous and not require exceptions.  <> <>  ""
  >  Unless we do better -- and I don't believe that we can -- we have no
  >logical basis for hope that they might be adopted into an update of 508.
  >&  I would bet that the supporters of 508 have confidence in the people
  >doing the work and understand that while not perfect, the results are very,
  >very good.  Just my own opinion and not anything from my employer.
  >-- Bruce   ----------
  >From:  Anne Pemberton
  >Sent:  Friday, March 30, 2001 4:33 PM
  >To:    Matt May; Jeff Isom; WCAG
  >Subject:          etc.   Matt,           My understanding was that 508 was
  >based on P1 level of Guidelines 1.0, not
  >the version currently under discussion. There were no substantive
  >provisions for cognitively disabled in version 1.0. It is my sincere hope
  >that version 2 will correct that oversight and allow 508 to be updated
  >accordingly.            I wonder if the politicians who support 508 would
  >have done so if they'd
  >any glimmer of an idea that any group, especially the cognitively disabled,
  >                                                Anne
  Anne Pemberton
  apembert@erols.com

  http://www.erols.com/stevepem
  http://www.geocities.com/apembert45


-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
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Received on Tuesday, 3 April 2001 04:53:12 UTC