Edit comment LC-507 for Accessibility Guidelines Working Group

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Comment LC-507: Comment Shortname:; Commenter: Alex Li <alex.li@sap.com> on behalf of SAP; Message-id:; Section of the document concerned:

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

This is related to user-entered or contributed content. It was brought to discussion on May 4th WCAG con call already with no conclusion. Due to the fact that you can violate WCAG with an ASCII smily face (1.1.1) or change of language without proper tag, or use of jargon, any user input can potentially violate WCAG. If the user input resurface, even as input confirmation, the web unit would automatically fail WCAG. All seach engines would fail because it cannot stop users from typing in an ASCII smily in the search box. The subsequent search result screen of finding x number, even if it is 0, of hits with the smily would fail. This is the same with foreign languages and jargon. All websites containing logon screen would fail because user can type in a smily face into the user id box, whether such user id exist or not. The system returns to confirm the id. The web unit of the confirmation just failed WCAG. All webmails would fail because incoming mails could come from a plain text mail client or contain inaccessible mail content of all sorts. Webmail cannot alter the content of incoming email without violation of privacy, at the minimum. No webmail can claim conformity. All photosites would fail because user can always put in empty or inproper alt tag of photos that they submit. All blogs would fail because user input is essential. Product user reviews, such as those in Amazon or Cnet, would fail.

The list can go on and extend to all web applications. As soon as a user agent accepts user input that are not restricted (anything other than dropdown list or radio button), they cannot conform. In fact, comment area of WCAG 2.0 last call fails because you cannot stop me from typing in jargon, foreign language, or ascii art. I'm making this violation at the botton of the mail just to make a point. Scoping out user-entered content is extremely difficult for many sites, especially when user-entered content is pervasive. How would a blog, web mail, evite, business application scope out user-entered content? Such information is essentially on every web unit.

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Proposed Change:

Add a paragraph in the comformance area that user-contributed content is automatically scoped out.; Related issues: 464 1222 1318
(space separated ids); WG Notes: [TEAMA] One proposal was to say that tools for writing accessible content were provided - and that would suffice for user contributed content. Others said that was too much 1) ATAG requires things that are under control of user agent. 2) some said content isn't accessible because it could be - but because it is. So we shouldn't do this. Much discussion and disagreement on what to do with user input. No decision yet. Discussed in the 08 February 2007 telecon: Action: Don, Loretta, Sean, David, Andi to take issue 507 and user contributed content and come back with a proposal (or at least progress report) by Feb 15 http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/02/08-wai-wcag-minutes.html Survey results: http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/20070201conformance/results#xlc507 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 {reject}; Resolution: We have rewritten the conformance section to clarify that WCAG is descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is, it doesn't say what should be accessible. Rather, it is a measure of accessibility. The conformance section has been rewritten to reflect this. A way to specify partial conformance was also added. See http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20070517/#conformance-partial 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.; (Please make sure the resolution is adapted for public consumption)