Re: Criminal Negligence, Making Enemies, and Gross Overreactions

At 10:08 AM 10/30/2001 , Terje Bless wrote:
>Web designers who try to pass the buck by saying "The customer made me
>do it." are about the lowest form of vermin in my not noticeably humble
>opinion. If a structural engineer told me the same ting in [insert
>suitably heart wrenching and totally inappropriate analogy] I'd have the
>scum defenstrated; a good tongue-lashing or virtual lynch-mob for the
>web designer seems not at all disproportionate.

It's not criminal negligence to make an inaccessible web page,
for god's sake.  Turn down the rhetoric and come back to reality
if you want to be taken seriously and not as a crank.

If it _is_ criminal negligence and you can prove it, then put your
money where your mouth is and file charges against this guy, sue
him, whatever you think is the correct legal remedy for someone
who's engaging in such criminal behavior.

>In other words, Kynn, I again disagree with your methods. As far as I
>can tell, they are nothing more then "To defeat the enemy, you must
>/become/ the enemy." and I strongly believe that this is not a sound
>strategy. It may win the battle, but will lose the war...

No, I feel that THERE ARE NO ENEMIES HERE.

Web developers, even ignorant ones, are our ALLIES and if you treat
them as ENEMIES and if you consider this a WAR rather than EDUCATION
EFFORT then we will "lose", plain and simply.

The idea that we can somehow CONQUER this poor idiot who doesn't
understand accessibility is flat-out wrong.  We have no enemy.  We
just have a problem.  The ONLY way we will solve the problem is to
enlist the people who can MAKE A DIFFERENCE -- meaning, the web
developers of the world -- as our ALLIES.

Sheesh, people.  Find something more productive to do with your
righteous indignation.

--Kynn



--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com>
Technical Developer Liaison
Reef North America
Accessibility - W3C - Integrator Network
________________________________________
BUSINESS IS DYNAMIC. TAKE CONTROL.
________________________________________
http://www.reef.com

Received on Tuesday, 30 October 2001 13:20:07 UTC