Re: Removing 4.1.1

Big +1 to this Gregg.

I represent an accessibility consultancy and testing tool vendor (TPGi) We
are in the process of modifying our rule set to remove the automated and
manual tests associated with 4.1.1.

I wholeheartedly support the removal of 4.1.1 It has generated busy work
for too long.



On Tuesday, 13 December 2022, Gregg Vanderheiden <gregg@vanderheiden.us>
wrote:

> To avoid the chairs having to defend themselves - I would like to point
> out that this is *not* a "*direction the chairs are taking*"  on this.
>
> The chairs did not raise this — it was raised by others.  And there is
> near unanimity in the working group that this is a problem that should be
> solved before the release of 2.2
>
> It is true that it would have been good to do this earlier — but everyone
> was focused on the new provisions and the problems with this one did not
> come up (at least to me) until others brought it up recently — including
> the severity and frequency of the problems it is creating.
>
> Even though it is no longer a problem — it is being used to market
> remediation products pointing to the fact that websites fail this provision
> (which has no effect on accessibility today) but they can be sued if
> they don’t buy their product to detect and fix it.
>
> It has also been pointed out the large amount of time that companies
> trying to follow WCAG waste fixing things to  pass this — when the fixed
> have no effect whatsoever on the accessibility of the webpages since
> browsers all ignore these errors and thus so does the AT that gets its
> information (in good form) from the brower.
>
>
>    - So there is good reason to act late on this.
>    - It was not the chairs but the majority of the WG that is pushing this
>    - It would have been good to fix earlier - but it was not brought up
>    or its impact explained earlier.
>
>
> All the best
>
> gregg
>
> ------------------------------
> Gregg Vanderheiden
> gregg@vanderheiden.us
>
>
>
> On Dec 13, 2022, at 2:26 PM, Wilco Fiers <wilco.fiers@deque.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
> <deque_logo_180p.gif>
>
>
>

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