Results from the W3C validator - working to meet AAA

Hi,

Re: http://www.agd.sa.gov.au

We've recently launched a new version of the site in drupal 7.

While the site was in draftwe identified and addressed accessibility issues using http://squizlabs.github.com/HTML_CodeSniffer/ and the guidelines.

Thanks to our developer working many hours in their own time - the home page (for example) shows up as 0 errors, 0 warnings using Code Sniffer and WAVE, however when running through the W3C validator it shows 25 errors, 12 warnings.

It's our intention to meet AAA compliance (we're aware of the problems with PDF on the site and are working to provide HTML alternatives and are working to resolve and the survey form found on any page: eg: http://www.agd.sa.gov.au/citizens/your-rights/advocacy).

We've received the advice below about the results from the W3C validator.........in short.......do you agree with it? Or are well short of meeting AAA at the moment?

Any advice/help/guidance would be fantastic

Thanks
Cliff

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Please also note that the site is going to come up with HTML validator errors regardless with their current doctype, because they are using a HTML+RDFa doctype (which is actually HTML 4.01 + RDFa 1.1), but they have written the site using HTML5, using tags such as section and footer.

Running the validator in HTML5 override mode gives me these errors:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.agd.sa.gov.au%2Fcitizens%2Fyour-rights%2Fconsumer-rights-and-protection&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=HTML5&group=1&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.3

Of which 20 of the 25 errors are complaints about trying to insert namespaces into HTML5 (which can't be done in HTML serialisation, only in XHTML5), and the other errors are either obsolete attributes, and one error that HTMLCS would also pick up about a label not pointing to a form control.

>From this, it is my opinion that it would pass Success Criterion 4.1.1 based on the basic "well-formedness" equivalent it allows, because none of the errors are based on nesting, duplicate attributes, or start/end tag issues.