Re: Concerns with Accessibe joining W3C

Steve writes:

> For a start, they actively discourage website owners from learning about
accessibility and fixing the issues with their websites. That is not some
peripheral opinion of theirs - it's the basis of their entire business
model. *That alone puts them completely at odds with the objectives of the
W3C and all its existing members.*

Really? I'm sorry, but I believe you are now working under a very false
assumption. (Doubly so, as seemingly Test Partners is not even a W3C member
- https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List#xT - although I would be happy
to learn otherwise.) I am curious to understand how you came to this
assertion?

First, the W3C is about more than just accessibility (although the work and
contributions that happen inside the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative to
advance digital accessibility is an important part of the W3C's mission).
First and foremost the W3C is a stakeholder consortium that focuses on
technical standards. It is NOT a 'social change' organization, and in fact,
with members from quite literally around the planet, including countries
with decidedly non-western political constructs like Russia and China, the
W3C walks a fine line there. (There has been some discussion within the
membership about that, and it proves to be a very tricky line to walk
indeed).

You may or may not recall that within the W3C a while back there was quite
some consternation about supporting the EME
<https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/>, which, while not (NOT!!!!) DRM
(Digital Rights Management), was nonetheless technical work on developing a
standardized API for browsers to support Encrypted Media. There were
numerous "Open Web" advocates that wanted the W3C to avoid doing that work
("DRM is Evil"), up-to and including the EFF "joining" the W3C to try and
block that work. They too came to realize that this was simply not how the
W3C operated, and that work continued despite major frustration from many
rank-and-file participants. (Sadly, the EFF does not appear to be a member
today - I suspect they did not renew their membership when they didn't win
their fight, but that is just a guess on my part.)

Second, while accessibility *IS* an important part of the work the W3C
does, I suspect that there are more than one member who have joined the W3C
for reasons that had nothing to do with accessibility, and who perhaps have
joined because as a tech company they wish to also 'bask in the cache' of
being associated with the W3C - again for reasons that have nothing to do
with accessibility.

For example, a quick visit to https://www.w3.org/TR/ - the 'repository' of
Technical Recommendations at the W3C - (thus the /TR) shows a lot of
emergent effort to address issues related to internationalization and
non-western characters and layouts. I suspect that most of the people
working on *THAT* pressing and far-reaching issue (also related to
equitable access) are not participating at the W3C for issues related to
accessibility.
(For the curious and those who like to learn new and interesting 'stuff',
check out:
https://w3c.github.io/typography/gap-analysis/language-matrix.html)

In fact, some here may be surprised to learn that there is a W3C policy
that emergent specifications get an accessibility "horizontal review" (by
the Accessible Platform Architecture Working Group) SPECIFICALLY because
the majority of the active participants within the numerous working groups
at the W3C are equally unfamiliar with the nuances of accessibility
considerations, and the task of that Working Group is to help our fellow
W3C colleagues NOT create specifications that reinforce or frustrate
accessibility issues. And as an active member of that group, I can assure
you we still see items that, if we did not capture and report them, would
harm "accessibility" even further - so again, accessibility at the W3C is
important, but it is not the only driver, and it is NOT why all members
join the W3C.

So respectfully Steve, while I truly do understand the frustration that
having accessiBe become members causes (and FWIW that ship has sailed -
they ARE members today <https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List#xA>),
your assumptions and assertions of what the W3C's role and mission is are
somewhat misinformed. I stated earlier, while I too am disappointed and
frustrated with accessiBe and their business model, I would also fight
tooth and nail to retain accessiBe's right to join the W3C.

Anything else is the antithesis of inclusion, and if nothing else, we need
to eat our own dogfood.

Respectfully,

JF

On Sat, May 29, 2021 at 8:21 AM Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk>
wrote:

> I would agree with you if the only thing we knew about accessiBe is that
> they propose to become members. But we know a great deal more. For a start,
> they actively discourage website owners from learning about accessibility
> and fixing the issues with their websites. That is not some peripheral
> opinion of theirs - it's the basis of their entire business model. That
> alone puts them completely at odds with the objectives of the W3C and all
> its existing members.
>
> We know that not only does their tool not make a significant improvement
> to the websites it is applied to, but the tool itself has serious
> accessibility barriers. These could be easily fixed, but it is an
> indictment of the company's competence and/or commitment to accessibility
> that it either doesn't know about them or has chosen not to fix them.
>
> I do not believe that we should overlook these and their other behaviours
> when assigning motives or predicting their future actions.
>
> Steve
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles 'chaals' (McCathie) Nevile <chaals@yandex.ru>
> Sent: 29 May 2021 07:09
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Concerns with Accessibe joining W3C
>
> Again, this is ascribing motives to individuals and making specific
> assertions about what they will do based on those motives. That is not
> reasonable behaviour.
>
> As Patrick pointed out, a vast amount of work done over the 24-year
> existence of WAI was done by private companies, or organisations funded by
> investment money, or individuals looking to be paid by someone.
>
> Investors can choose whatever reason, or combination of reasons, to put
> money into an organisation.
>
> Completely hypothetically (I neither know nor care about the specific
> details of this case), it is entirely possible that the series A money came
> from some organisation whose mission is to improve accessibility, and a
> condition of the funding is participation in W3C and demonstrating an
> improvement in the effectiveness of their work specifically to counter the
> current stream of bad-mouthing that many in the accessibility community
> raise against them, by actually answering the complaints with improvements.
>
> It is quite reasonable to point out things that don't work as advertised,
> or why a certain solution they develop fails to meet a certain requirement.
> It is reasonable in turn to question whether that requirement still makes
> sense. The point is to reach consensus on the answers to such questions. We
> have been doing that in WAI for 20-odd years, and should continue.
>
> cheers
>
> Chaals
>
> On Sat, 29 May 2021 01:56:00 +1000, Steve Green <
> steve.green@testpartners.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Their investors expect the company to maximise the return on their
> > investment and won’t want anything to get in the way of that, >even if
> > it makes the world better.
>
>
>
> --
> Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
>
>

-- 
*John Foliot* | Senior Industry Specialist, Digital Accessibility

"I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." -
Pascal "links go places, buttons do things"