leaving SC out of the draft - this is an issue that must get consensus

Hi FolksAndrew said on the call today that  SC that do not meet all the acceptance criteria left out of this draft . This is an issue that must get consensus. It should not be a decision the chairs and staff contact make by themselves. 


My 2 cents is no. This is not ok.

It is essential that SC that address a user need such that, some users can not use content that does not conform, are in the draft for 2.1 at the end of the month. Even if they  do not have full consensus, and we may have identified issues with them. These issues can be identified as an editors note next to any relevant SC. 


If we do not publish them we are making it significantly less likely that we will be able to include them into WCAG 2.1 when we get to CR. This means that people with disabilities that WCAG have not yet addressed, we will continue to not address. That is horrible and in my opinion, unacceptable . Further it is a step that shows that we have not made reasonable effort to include low vision and cognitive. 


Let's explain with an example. A typical issue is testability - and a lack of testing tools. Often the tools are there, just not in use in the accessibility testing industry. For example, there a open sources natural language processing tools, and there are tools that test against word list (VOA have one for restricted languages, translation etc). If the simple lange criteria are included then the tool owners can get working making a user interface that is useable for our industry, and when we get to CR people will find this a testable SC. 


Did you know Voice of America had such a tool for their simple language news  broadcast  when wcag 2.0 came out? They were talking about using it for accessibility, but because it ended up just being level AAA and using common words was not even a requirement there - they did not bother. No tools no SC. No SC no tools.


With this draft we have an opportunity to encourage our industry to look for new tools, look for new solutions and learn about new disabilities. They may need to install something new on there laptop. So be it.


 All the best

Lisa Seeman

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