Re: The Nonsense Rhetoric of Web Accessibility (was: background-image in CSS)

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, Kynn Bartlett 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. 
> 
> Wow, this is the week of awful analogies

not that bad.
> 
> >Accessibility is a civil rights issue, and civil rights issues are 
> >human rights issues.
> 
> 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.

your right, it is more like a store owner saying, "people in wheelchairs
can come into my store" but refusing to build a ramp over the two steps
into his store.

> The author determines the essential purpose of a web page.  This is

no, the author determines what HE THINKS is the essential purpose of a web
page.  only the reader can determine what THEY THINK is the purpose of a
web page
and as often as not they are not the same thing.

> major threat to accessibility in the slightest.

again who determines  what is or isn't a threat to accessibility, the
designer or the consumer???

> 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, 

or possibly the not taking seriously those who are being denied the
content, weather or not the author thinks it is important, something is
still being denied, solely because of the persons disability, and I can
assure you that is the definition the DOJ uses.

> thus making it harder for those of

maybe making our job harder, yes, unimportant, no.

> , "you have to
> make sites which can be used by everyone" while some other ....
> is off saying, "...which means that I, the user, have full
> control over whatever you want to say!"

no the author has control over what is said, the user has control over
what is heard, or desired of the content

> Come on, people.  Of course accessibility is a human rights issue,
see you agree.

Bob

****
notice how your words were edited to remove infamatory statement's or to
even change the meaning(maybe). that is what the user of your authoring a
document does, intentionally or unintentionally.  and full inclusion of
data is essential to the understanding and retention of what is authored
****

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Received on Friday, 18 January 2002 16:03:57 UTC