Re: context?

At 06:02 p.m. 11/16/98 -0500, Chris Maden wrote:
>In some situations, it is possible that the government is the best
>agent to effect change, but it does not follow that where there is
>suffering, there needs to be government.  (In fact, there is often
>already government there...)  

Okay, then who will correct the fact that the web is being
designed to exclude an entire class of people?  Or is that simply
an "okay thing"?

>I have yet to see a compelling argument
>that application of the ADA to the Web will actually produce
>anything.  Large companies and municipal sites may be forced to change
>their ways,

...wouldn't that be something, though?

>but smaller sites, no less interesting (in fact, maybe
>more interesting) to the disabled, will likely ignore the legislation
>unless actually sued.

...and wouldn't that be something, too?

>I maintain that our effort will be more
>productive if spent on education rather than legislation.

Well, I do that already.  However, that doesn't mean that legislation
designed to protect the interests of minorities (of any kind) is
worthless.

>The
>legislation is also only effective within a single country; spreading
>it necessitates a repeat effort in every target country, while
>education does not stop at national boundaries.  The ADA will be as
>effective on the Web as the CDA.

If the ADA is effective at bringing accessibility to just American
websites, I will be pleased.  Won't you?

I don't see legislation as the primary tool (and rarely give it more
than a passing mention in the material I create/use), but I don't
think we can dismiss it out of hand.

--
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>             http://www.idyllmtn.com/~kynn/
Chief Technologist & Co-Owner, Idyll Mountain Internet; Fullerton, California
Enroll now for my online stylesheets (CSS) class! http://www.hwg.org/classes/
The voice of the future?   http://www.hwg.org/opcenter/w3c/voicebrowsers.html

Received on Monday, 16 November 1998 18:11:27 UTC