- From: Harry Woodrow <harrry@email.com>
- Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 03:39:22 +0800
- To: "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
- Cc: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
If you claim otherwise, you are insane, deluded, lying, or woefully misinformed. Have you ever thought that in this case it may be you that is that. Harry Woodrow -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Kynn Bartlett Sent: Saturday, 19 January 2002 2:57 AM To: Charles F. Munat; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org Subject: The Nonsense Rhetoric of Web Accessibility (was: background-image in CSS) At 10:53 AM -0800 1/18/02, Charles F. Munat wrote: >RUST Randal wrote: >>as a journalist, i find the point of view that the user has control over >what i determine is essential is simply ludicrous. >Yes, and back in the 1960s, many store owners thought that they had >a right to decide who they would serve and how. If blacks were >served at all, they had to enter through the back door. And when >confronted with the discriminatory aspect of this practice, the >store owners loudy protested their right to discriminate. Wow, this is the week of awful analogies >Accessibility is a civil rights issue, and civil rights issues are >human rights issues. Yes, but what you're saying and what other people are saying is, frankly, bizarre, inflammatory, divisive, and downright stupid. A background image which is related to the content, which conveys content available elsewhere on the page, which can be safely turned off and still convey the essential purpose of the page, which enhances the ability of the visual user to use the content without hurting the accessibility to those who cannot see visual content, and which complies with WCAG1 -- which is what Randal proposed, if anyone had bothered to read it -- is in NO WAY AT ALL anything like store owners discriminating against black people. Not at all. It's not. It's simply not. If you claim otherwise, you are insane, deluded, lying, or woefully misinformed. The author determines the essential purpose of a web page. This is not discrimination. This is not equivalent to racism. This is not a major threat to accessibility in the slightest. The GREATER threat to accessibility is nonsense rhetoric such as this, which only serves to make web accessibility activists look like complete and utter fools, thus making it harder for those of us who are not utterly foolish to stand up and say, "you have to make sites which can be used by everyone" while some other loon is off saying, "...which means that I, the user, have full control over whatever you want to say!" I find the comparison to racism to be completely offensive both in the minimalization of 1960s-style racism and the absurdity of claiming that the existence and proper execution of authorial intent -- in which the author is explicitly taking steps to ENSURE the accessibility of the essential content of the page -- to be equated with racism. Come on, people. Of course accessibility is a human rights issue, but let's not suddenly make any sort of statements which we don't agree with into a Nazi death camp or institutionalized racism or slavery or whatever. Please. --Kynn, disgusted -- Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> http://kynn.com Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain http://idyllmtn.com Web Accessibility Expert-for-hire http://kynn.com/resume January Web Accessibility eCourse http://kynn.com/+d201 Forthcoming: Teach Yourself CSS in 24 Hours
Received on Friday, 18 January 2002 14:41:35 UTC