Edit comment LC-1027 for Accessibility Guidelines Working Group

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Comment LC-1027: Comment Shortname:; Commenter: Gian Sampson-Wild <gian@tkh.com.au>; Message-id:; Section of the document concerned:

or; Refinement of the section concerned:; Status:
assigned to; Type:; Resolution status:
Response drafted Resolution implemented Reply sent to commenter; Response status:
No response from Commenter yet Commenter approved disposition Commenter objected to disposition
Commenter's response (URI):; Comment:
Definition of accessibility - In the Baseline document (under the heading 'If the WCAG does not set the baseline, then how can we be sure that a site will be accessible?) it says "No site or content is ever completely accessible". In the Conformance document it says "Note that even conformance to all three levels will not make web content accessible to all people." I strongly object to these statements. All content can be made accessible. In some cases, content may not be accessible, but if the problems were identified it could be made accessible. As the main body representing accessibility I think it reprehensible that we have these statements.

Proposed Change:

Remove the statements. Merge Level 1 and Level 2 SC into one group called 'Mandatory'. Rename Level 3 to 'Advisory' or 'Optional'; Related issues: (space separated ids); WG Notes: [EDITORZ] Discussed in the 21 September 2006 telecon: Resolution: accept LC-1027 as amended http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2006/09/21-wai-wcag-minutes.html {not-accept} DONE Replace the sentence, "Note that even conformance to all three levels will not make Web content accessible to all people." with, "Note that even conformance to all three levels of WCAG 2.0 will not make Web content accessible to all people. As was true for WCAG 1.0 even content that is AAA conformant will not overcome the accessibility barriers faced by those with certain combinations of disabilities or with certain types of severe disabilities." (leave original sentence bold and new sentence unbolded) Internal WD updated 25 September. Discussed in the 10 May 2007 telecon: Accepted by Unanimous Consent http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/05/10-wai-wcag-minutes.html; Resolution: The statements you refer to are meant to reflect the reality that not all Web content can be made accessible to all people. One of the lessons learned with WCAG 1.0 was that, for some individuals, even content that meets WCAG 1.0 AAA did not overcome the accessibility barriers faced by those with certain combinations of disabilities or with certain types of severe disabilities. Regarding the proposal to combine levels A and AA as mandatory and rename level AAA to advisory or optional, the working group has received a great deal of feedback on both sides of this issue. We have chosen three levels because we feel it provides the best options for the different users of the guidelines.; (Please make sure the resolution is adapted for public consumption)