Re: UNS: RE: UNS: Re: WCAG considering amending F65 to NOT fail missing ALT text if title or aria-label is present

Thank you for responding to some of my concerns. I want to respond
because I believe there is good reason to reconsider what benefit is
gained by rushing to blog or tweet when hot topics emerge in W3C
conversations. Frankly, my conclusion is that fracturing our
deliberations this way deprives W3C people from a full consideration of
the question at hand--the opposite effect of what I expect is the intent
of such blogging and tweeting.

The assertion is generally made that "the community" is being engaged
when such activity occurs. You assert this yourself, and the person who
tweeted used the same phrase.

In fact the W3C is not excluding the community. We have built in process
requirements that call for public comment at key moments in the
development of all W3C formal documents, guidelines and notes. Indeed,
much of our email deliberation is publically accessible, and all our WAI
working groups have mechanisms in place to accept public comment.
Indeed, our process requirements even require formally logged responses
to public comments at key junctures in specification development.

So, I cannot accept that "the community" is being excluded by W3C
discussion, such as we are now conducting regarding alt and its several
ARIA alternatives. Rather, what is happening is that we, the
participants of this dicussion are being denied your views. You've taken
them off list and have not shared them here. Why? You say you have two
followers. There are more people CC'd on this email (and on your email)
than that. Why would you write substantive concerns to two followers but
neglect to share them here?

If your answer is that you've shared them on the WCAG list, may I point
out that this conversation was broadened beyond that list this past
Friday? Surely a pointer to such a WCAG posting would be a reasonable
consideration for those of us not reading the WCAG list?

I did read your blog. I have several responses I'd like to make, but I
also want to honor the others here in W3C who are considering this
question now, so I will not respond on your blog. If you will post your
concerns here, I will respond to you then. My responses will suggest
certain factual errors and certain assumptions I would challenge.
Interested? I think others would be as well.

Janina

Adrian Roselli writes:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Janina Sajka [mailto:janina@rednote.net]
> [...] 
> > Frankly, I'm unclear why you even took this discussion to Twitter. What did
> > you expect to gain and how are we to understand the value of any results?
> > What good does this do? What value does it add?
> 
> I'd like to note that I wrote an overview on my blog yesterday [1] and also solicited feedback from the community.
> 
> I don't consider this to be random voting, nor do I expect the respondents have all the context. I also know that my followers (all 2 of them) hold a similar view as I do, so I don't expect to hear a viewpoint different from my own.
> 
> I do, however, hope to discover some nuggets (for either viewpoint) that maybe I had not considered that I can bring back here for discussion. I don't think lack of membership here precludes having a voice, though I do see the value in having somebody collecting that information to present back here.
> 
> And for the record, I am against loosening alt attribute restrictions, as I was against it the last time it came around for discussion.
> 
> 
> 
> 1. http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2013/11/image-alt-exception-change-re-re-re.html

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Received on Tuesday, 26 November 2013 07:45:22 UTC