Removing 4.1.1

Hi everyone,

In the discussion today<https://www.w3.org/2022/12/13-ag-minutes.html#t13> we decided (again) to remove 4.1.1 from WCAG 2.2 and include a note.

We also got towards agreeing to do the same in WCAG 2.0 and 2.1. That would involve creating an errata, then re-publishing the specs to include the errata.

Areas of agreement:

  *   We don't want people to be required to test or report on 4.1.1.
  *   Any issues that impact end-users that are caught by other SC, so a fully conforming 2.2 site would conform to 2.1/2.0 for those meaningful issues (even if it still included 4.1.1).

The rest of the discussion was how to implement it.

Looking at the current editor’s draft, it would be like this:
https://w3c.github.io/wcag/guidelines/22/#parsing

But with an additional note. Gregg suggested:
“NOTE: This was originally adopted to address problems that Assistive Technology had directly parsing HTML. This is no longer true so this criterion no longer solves that problem and is removed.”
That is in https://github.com/w3c/wcag/pull/2840/files

There is also a section at the top of the understanding document explaining the rationale. https://w3c.github.io/wcag/understanding/parsing.html
(I need to work out how to get the old SC text to appear on the understanding doc, remove the “new in wcag 2.2” bit, and add the mapping table.)

So the question for 2.0/2.1 is whether to do exactly the same thing?

Pertinent comments from the meeting included:

  *   Removing it from early specs feels like re-writing history.
  *   Keeping them consistent means that you maintain inter-version compatibility.
  *   Keeping the SC text in allows the worst aspects of 4.1.1 to continue (e.g. drive-by legal threats).
  *   We could maintain the SC text and add a note saying (strongly) not to report on obsolete SCs.
  *   Regulations tend to use specific dates of a standard, so it doesn’t change regulations until they decide to do so.

Do you have any different arguments for/against removing 4.1.1 from 2.1/2.0?

Kind regards,

-Alastair

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@alastc / www.nomensa.com<http://www.nomensa.com>