RE: Definitions - Policy, Regulation and Compliance

Another aspect I find helpful to highlight is that compliance is aimed at folks who are required to meet the law, regulation, etc.  Conformance is aimed at voluntarily meting a standard, regulation, etc.   For example, vendors who are not subject to the regulation directly may be asked to conform to standards in order to be eligible for procurement or to meet terms of their contracts while organizations covered by the law or regulation have to comply to the law by purchasing products that conform to the standards.

Jonathan

From: Gregg Vanderheiden <gregg@vanderheiden.us>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2022 2:16 AM
To: Peter Korn <pkorn@lab126.com>
Cc: Mary Jo Mueller <maryjom@us.ibm.com>; w3c-waI-gl@w3. org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Definitions - Policy, Regulation and Compliance

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Mary Jo

Very nice

I would add a bit to your compliance -

Maybe something like

Compliance -  The act of complying with a wish, request, demand, or requirement.  In WCAG the term is used to refer to complying with regulations or laws.


Peter
You actually know of many other uses of regulation ( like the control of energy to a motor) but I agree that - we should probably limit the use in WCAG to the domain you specify.   I think the best way to do this is to SAY "as used by WCAG" and then define it in that context.

I also has trouble with the quote about regulations being within a law.  The quote of complying with a regulation within a law - may be accurate in some cases but regulations are usually not within laws.  Laws usually require that some agency create regulations that are then enforced and updated etc.   All of the disability regulations that I know of are created by government agencies as specified and empowered by a law in some way.   There may be some examples of laws with regs in them but I don’t know of any in accessibility area.

Also MJ - you seem to have two definitions for regulation glued onto each other

Sooooo
I think the second half of MJs is all we need:
As used in WCAG documents — A regulation is a written rule that specifies how the ideas of a law are to be implemented and can specify standards, compliance, as well as what and whom the regulation is scoped to apply to.
[I changed THE LAW to  A LAW since there is no law specified for THE to refer to]   [and changed  "rule written that...’ to   'written rule that...' ]
[I also added — as used in WCAG documents  — because we don’t want to try to give a full definition which also includes "controlling the flow of fluid or energy to a motor and lots of other things]




Gregg Vanderheiden
gregg@vanderheiden.us<mailto:gregg@vanderheiden.us>




On Sep 14, 2022, at 10:06 PM, Korn, Peter <pkorn@lab126.com<mailto:pkorn@lab126.com>> wrote:

Hi Mary Jo,

The use of the term “regulation” outside of laws or gov’t is new to me (e.g., the NC State definitions<https://policies.ncsu.edu/definitions/> link – which suggests that organizations can have regulations that they themselves write).  It doesn’t jibe with my own understanding of the term, nor one of your other links “What Is the Difference Between Law, Policy, and Regulation, According to 7 Experts<https://upjourney.com/what-is-the-difference-between-law-policy-and-regulation>”, which states that “A regulation is a rule within a law that specifies how the ideas of the law are actually going to be implemented”.

Are you suggesting AGWG adopt a definition of the term “regulation” that need not be connected to a law or other gov’t requirement?


Best,

Peter
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Peter Korn (he/him/his) | Director, Accessibility | Amazon Devices & Services
pkorn@amazon.com<mailto:pkorn@amazon.com>

From: Mary Jo Mueller <maryjom@us.ibm.com<mailto:maryjom@us.ibm.com>>
Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 4:22 PM
To: AGWG Public List <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Definitions - Policy, Regulation and Compliance
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Resent-Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 4:18 PM

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Hi all,

I wanted to follow up on discussions we had at TPAC on Tuesday where I expressed (not so eloquently) my reservations with the definitions that had been presented for Policy, Regulation and Compliance. I am attaching a Word document with some definitions culled using various resources and different sectors where these terms are used sometimes with further qualifying words. I hope this better expresses where I’m coming from on these. I have added in some web links I also found helpful.

Best regards,

Mary Jo
_______________________________________
Mary Jo Mueller
IBM Accessibility Standards Program Manager

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."  ~John Quincy Adams
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