Re: Removing 4.1.1

Hey folks,

I am concerned with the direction the AGWG chairs are taking this. This
would have been a fantastic thing for AGWG to work on two years ago. But to
start this work now, with so little time left for us to figure out how to
do this right, and when we're already in the extension period of our
charter, I think it's inappropriate.

I feel that something this significant deserves to be handled with a lot of
care and forethought. For example, what are even the requirements for
publishing an amended WCAG 2.0 and 2.1. It's never been done. Does it need
to go through formal approval? I bet someone knows, but nobody on the call
today did.

Then there is bigger stuff, like what does this mean for WCAG's ISO
standard. Can that be updated? What's the process for that? If it can be
done, who would need to approve such a thing, and will they? Can we do it
with this W3C legal entity thing going on? What about other standards like
EN 301 549? Can they, and if so will they adopt a similar change? What
about policy and legislation? What about WCAG 2 translations, will those be
updated, or is Germany just going to keep using 4.1.1 because it was never
removed from their translation? What about test methodologies like Trusted
Tester and RGGA? How long will all of these things be in disagreement while
they're sorting out this update?

I'm sure this stuff can all be figured out, but we should have the answers
before we make the change. We can't just throw out this curve ball and hope
for the best. Please understand that I want to see 4.1.1 be dropped in some
way. But we have a responsibility to coordinate and communicate about these
things. We haven't done that, and we don't have time for it anymore.


On Tue, Dec 13, 2022 at 7:42 PM Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> @alastc / www.nomensa.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
*Wilco Fiers*
Axe-core & Axe-linter product owner - WCAG 3 Project Manager - Facilitator
ACT Task Force