Re: Concerns with Accessibe joining W3C

I second Patrick's concern. W3C must be an open organisation, being very  
very careful about who it restricts from participating.

In addition, while you may personally doubt the good faith of a  
participant it is not acceptable behaviour to simply suggest that people  
are here for dishonest purposes. Plain verifiably factual statements about  
an organisation are one thing, extrapolating from them to make claims  
about motivations or how you think they will behave in the future is quite  
different.

One reason for insisting on polite respectful discussion in W3C is that it  
makes it easier to have constructive conversations that allow people who  
disagree on a technical question to collectively explore sensible ways of  
reaching agreement, rather than a majority simply bullying a small  
minority by speaking over them, or enforcing adherence to a set of  
technical beliefs as a requirement of participation and chasing everyone  
who disagrees out of the conversation.

I am personally very skeptical that an organisation providing automated  
overlays will reach a high level of accessibility. Given the vagaries of  
the law, I think it is more likely that in some circumstances they enable  
a minimal for of legal compliance - but I don't think that alone is  
especially wonderful - it generally reflects a poor legal framework rather  
than a good outcome for either people or the Web as a platform.

That said, I can imagine ways to build overlays that *do* achieve high  
levels of compliance, and have seen some demonstrations that are pretty  
good.

Whether Accessibe does a great job or a terrible one is not terribly  
relevant to whether they are welcome to participate. It will of course be  
reflected in how likely proposals they make are likely to be accepted as  
moving us forward, or politely demolished as sub-optimal or ineffectual.  
But we do a disservice to them, ourselves, and the Web if we don't make  
those judgements on a case-by-case basis rather than based on what we  
think of the organisation in general.

What matters is whether they participate, whether everyone in the room can  
behave in a professional and respectful way, and how effective we are  
collectively in identifying barriers to accessibility, finding strategies  
to overcome those barriers, and getting them implemented effectively.

If they bring their experiences and a desire to improve things, and  
contribute to reaching those goals whether greatly or occasionally, I  
would be appalled to think we would not welcome them as participants.

cheers

Chaals

On Fri, 28 May 2021 06:31:02 +1000, Patrick H. Lauke  
<redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:

> I actually have concerns about this discussion.


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Received on Friday, 28 May 2021 12:07:38 UTC