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Comment LC-464: Comment Shortname:; Commenter: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au>; Message-id:; Section of the document concerned:

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Comment Type: TE
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):

Conformance: Aggregated Content.

If content contains authored units that do not themselves carry any conformance claims, and those authored units are modified or substituted as a result of an aggregation process, then the conformance status of those authored units is unknown at any point in time unless individual assessments are carried out. Such assessments may be impractical, for example on sites that collect comments from the public, maintain e-mail archives, etc.

As the guidelines are currently drafted, the conformance of any Web unit containing such authored units depends in turn on the conformance of those authored units, which may vary over time. In order to avoid making false conformance claims, the operator of such a Web site would, presumably, have to exclude such Web units from the scope of any conformance claim, in accordance with the scoping provisions of the conformance section. I think this consequence needs to be clarified and stated explicitly.

Alternatively, the scoping provisions could be modified to allow individual authored units to be excluded from the ambit of a claim, but in that case it is by no means clear how the "authored units" could be precisely identified and specified in the claim.

Proposed Change:

Clarify that if it is unknown whether an authored unit participating in aggregation conforms to WCAG 2.0, or which level of conformance is achieved, then it is likewise unknown what, if any, level of conformance is attained by Web units in which it appears. Implementors should be advised to exclude Web units containing such "unknown" authored units from the scope of any conformance claim in accordance with the "scoping" provisions of the conformance section of WCAG 2.0.

Note that by controlling what may appear in authored units participating in the aggregation process, through technical or other means, it may be possible to ensure that a given level of conformance is always satisfied. Under these circumstances (where the conformance of resulting Web units is guaranteed), conformance claims with respect to such aggregated content may reliably be made.; Related issues: 507 1222 1318
(space separated ids); WG Notes: [TEAMA] Discussed in the 16 May 2006 Team A call, proposal sent to list: <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2006AprJun/0189.html> suggestions from WG Call Author can also choose to provide "fail-safe" alternative content for included content of unknown conformance, just in case it doesn't comply. But overall, yes, authors should choose to include content of known or knowable conformance if they wish to claim conformance for a page. Also, this overlaps with user input issue and needs to be reworded so that it doesnt cover that by mistake. OLD PROPOSAL {needs rewriting - see above} (do not accept) This comment is based on supposition that if content includes parts that have unknown accessibility, the author should not be responsible. This is not correct. The page either conforms or doesn't. The fact that parts change means the authors need to ensure that changing parts are accessible if they want to claim the web unit is accessible, not that they could scope them out and still claim access. The guidelines are written to reflect this, and that is the intent of the working group. 5/25/06 telcon additional comments to consider in resolving this item (from survey) - We may want to be sure that our conformance section makes this clear. - I believe this is the issue that Alex Li raised a couple of weeks ago. Philosophically, I agree that a page cannot claim conformance if it contains authored units for which the conformance level is not known. However, this would mean that any Web page that contains a text entry field (such as this one) would not be able to claim conformance. In particular, 1.3.1, 2.4.4, and 3.1.2 would be difficult, if not impossible to meet. We can't just say you just don't claim conformance for those pages. For one thing, we want developers to make the part they do control conform but they may not be motivated to do that if they can't, in the end, claim conformance. For another thing, if a government has a policy requiring conformance with WCAG Levels 1 and 2, does that mean that government websites cannot have pages with user contributed content such as this one? - I think the other side of ths issue is that if we cave into the rational that corporations will not claim conformance, we may also notice that other competing standards are already emerging (ie European Union and the UK crowd) and are being adopted (or being considered) because they *do* require acessibility. I think various filtering techniques and algorithmes could overcome the issue of text based submitted comments like this page. I don't think this kind of text based filtering and fixing would be that difficult for large companies and governments that are on the cutting edge of technology. Perhaps even the rules for "text based documents" could be applied. If we let this go I think we are going to get scorched by the disability community and by the accessibility community and I am concerned our GL will be supplanted by other standards that at much more demandng than ours. I think we've all worked too hard and long to allow for that to happen. Discussed in the 08 February 2007 telecon: Discussed in the 08 February 2007 telecon: Action: Don, Loretta, Sean, David, Andi Gregg to discuss and consider alternatives. http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/02/08-wai-wcag-minutes.html http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/02/08-wai-wcag-minutes.html Discussed in the 19 April 2007 telecon: resolved: 464, 507, 1222 and 1318 as amended http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/04/19-wai-wcag-minutes.html {accept} DONE Note: If pages can not conform (for example, conformance test pages or example pages) they would not be included in the conformance claim. Internal WD updated 20 April 2007; Resolution: We have made conformance claims less regulatory and more descriptive, that is, a conformance claim describes what is conformant to the guidelines. We think it is more appropriate for policy makers to determine appropriate exceptions. We have provided a way to make a statement about parts of a page that do conform if the whole page doesn't. We have clarified the situation by removing all exceptions and adding the following at the end of the conformance section: Note: If pages can not conform (for example, conformance test pages or example pages) they would not be included in the conformance claim. Statement of partial conformance Sometimes, Web pages are created that will later have additional content added to them. For example, an email program, a blog, or an article that allows users to add comments to the bottom. Another example would be a company or individual who compiles a page from multiple sources. Sometimes, the content from the other sources is automatically inserted into the page over time. In both of these cases, it is not possible to know at the time of original posting what the content of the pages will be. Two options are available: 1. A conformance claim is made based on best knowledge. If a page of this type is monitored and kept conformant (non-conforming content is immediately removed or made conforming) then a conformance claim can be made since, except for error periods, the page is conformant. No conformance claim should be made if it is not possible to monitor or correct non-conforming content. 2. A "statement of partial conformance" is made. A statement that the page does not conform, but could conform if certain parts were removed can be made. The form of that statement would be, "This page would conform to WCAG 2.0 at level X if the following parts from uncontrolled sources were removed." 1. This "statement of partial conformance" cannot be used for content that is under the author's control. 2. The "following parts" of the page that would need to be removed would be described in terms that users can understand. (e.g. they can't be described as "all parts that we do not have control of" unless they are clearly marked as such.); (Please make sure the resolution is adapted for public consumption)