- From: Michael R. Burks <mburks952@worldnet.att.net>
- Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 12:35:30 -0400
- To: "Al Gilman" <asgilman@iamdigex.net>, "Brian Kelly" <b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk>, <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
- Cc: <chitchcock@cast.org>
I totally agree with Al here and I would add this, the Late Len Kasday pointed out over and over that no tool can completely check anything for accessiblity. It takes human Intervention. It takes someone who knows what they are doing to check the results of the tools. Also Bobby can be downloaded from CAST. Al is right, you use this tool from the web for large projects and no one else can use it. I have had it happen to me. Al is also right in saying people should not expect to get a good analysis for free. Tbese things take time and skill. To expect to get it for free is totally unrealistic. Sincerely, Mike Burks Webmaster and Public Information Officer www.icdri.org -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Al Gilman Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 12:25 PM To: Brian Kelly; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org Cc: chitchcock@cast.org Subject: Re: Bulk use of [free] accessibility checkers (don't) At 08:15 AM 2001-08-03 , Brian Kelly wrote: >I am currently carrying out a benchmarking survey of a selection of Web >sites. The survey will look at measures such as the size of entry >points, quality of HTML, WAI compliance, etc. I will be using >Web-based tools, so that the method can be seen by all. I'll also be >using freely-available Web services, so anyone can try the survey for >themselves. There is a question of business justice, here. It is not fair to rely on the free Web-interactive services such as Bobby at CAST for survey purposes. Bulk work such as surveys should be performed with resources provided by the activity doing the survey. This is partly where our clunky 'robot control' system came from. There have been problems with U.S. activities bringing the free over-the-Web Bobby service to its knees in a de_facto denial-of-service attack by putting production loads on the web-published service. Use the free service for samples, please. Not for surveys or other production runs. Those who wish to survey should reasonably expect to pay. There is no excuse for assuming that people will render you great gobs of service for free. That which is appropriately _de rien_ is in the eye of the service provider, not receiver. Al
Received on Friday, 3 August 2001 12:36:33 UTC