In WCAG NEXT let's put a date field on failures

Today I proposed a failure that I wrote up in issue 173.
https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/173
It to ensure authors identify regions of a page programmatically (or with text).
We did not gain consensus and I am dropping the proposal in this
version of WCAG.

However, I think it points to a significant problem that we will have
to address in WCAG.NEXT. I would like to propose a solution.

===Problem===
WCAG was created to be an ever green document. The SCs are not
technology dependent, non normative techniques and failures, can be
created to address new realities that we see on the ground as the web
develops. This has happened for techniques, but not failures. We have
created about 150 new techniques since 2008, and only *3* (three)
failures.

It is not from a lack of failure proposals, there have been plenty in
8 years. However, it is almost impossible to gain consensus on a
failure, because there are always a some voices that will not want to
tighten things up, for various reasons, some of them I would agree
with in some situations. Here are the main reasons its hard to pass a
failure:

1) Fear that it changes the requirements of WCAG
2) If not, a fear that there is a *percieved* change to WCAG
3) Fear that pages that once passed will not pass after a new common
failure is introduced.

====Solution=====
Id' like to propose an "Approved date" field, to techniques and
failures, which would be populated when we gained consensus on a
technique or failure. This will give jurisdictions a tool to exempt
failures that were created after a site was built.

Cheers,
David MacDonald



CanAdapt Solutions Inc.

Tel:  613.235.4902

LinkedIn

twitter.com/davidmacd

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www.Can-Adapt.com



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Received on Tuesday, 26 April 2016 19:37:58 UTC