- From: Debi Orton <oradnio@wsg.net>
- Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:37:30 -0400
- To: joshue.oconnor@ncbi.ie,chaals@opera.com
- Cc: John Foliot <foliot@wats.ca>, "'Patrick H. Lauke'" <redux@splintered.co.uk>, 'wai-ig list' <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>, 'Lachlan Hunt' <lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au>
Butting in here... I'm afraid to say it, but I agree with Josh regarding the HTML 5 workgroup. Although I haven't been terribly vocal, I've read at least 75% of the posts to the listserv, and the lack of tolerance or civility, the disregard and disrespect of the need for accessibility, and the insistence on "paving the cowpaths" no matter how wrong those cowpaths are sometimes seems to overshadow all of the gains web development advocates have made for semantic markup, awareness-raising about accessibility and why it's important, and about basic usability over the past few years. I have considered dropping out of the workgroup on several occasions, but some of the people on the workgroup have written to me privately to urge me to keep working on it. Some might say we're being babies and that's how the business world is. My reply to that is that if it's business you're concerned with, you risk alienating 10% of your potential audience by ignoring accessibility. Further, you're basically saying that you have no wish to do business with the US Government or any of the many US States that have adopted accessibility requirements. The EU will require accessibility soon (can't recall the specifics of that) and I believe the UK already does. So how much of your potential worldwide customer base have you just kissed off? Not many businesses can ignore that much potential revenue. But the business case aside, what I find most disconcerting is the tone of the workgroup. I signed up thinking that this would be fun, an exciting way to learn how the specifications I've used for so long were created. I haven't found any part of this fun, and I really have to force myself to read the listserv most days. The IRC log was just the icing on the cake. I sincerely hope none of those folks ever finds themselves disabled, because the world they would make would probably dictate they'd have to be taken out and shot. Debi Orton At 05:09 PM 7/26/2007, Joshue O Connor wrote: >Charles McCathieNevile wrote: > > Maybe we can lift the level of dialogue, respect, trust, and > genuine cooperation to the point where this work becomes useful, > instead of just sucking time and resources. Because it is important. > >I am all for that Chaals - but it looks like there is a reassessment of >some ground rules that needs to take place - as the comments on the IRC >are pretty disgraceful - and to be frank I am starting to think this >whole thing is a waste of time. I care a lot about what I do and thought >the WG was a place where I could share ideas with like minded people who >have a common organizational goal. That does not seem to be the case. > >There seems to be a genuine dearth of tolerance and respect that is >frankly shocking. The IRC comments reveal more in their tone than those >who are involved in the dialogue probably realise. > >Josh > > >******************************************************************** > >NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments >is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended >recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of >the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify >the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to >delete it and any attachments from your system. > >NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated >by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However, >it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are >transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments. > >Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email >and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily >represent the views of NCBI > > >******************************************************************** Debi Orton/oradnio@wsg.net www.consideration.org www.flashquake.org
Received on Thursday, 26 July 2007 21:34:12 UTC