helo John - and others:
some good questions you ask there. And risky ones because they trigger
me to open all polemical flood-gates:
> I would like to apply this same idea to all the sites in USA that end in
> ".gov.us"
Well, in a way, this is already an American Dream come true - you
*have* the "Americans with Disabilities Act" (a.k.a. ADA; not the
language, <g>), and actually many official instances' sites *do* respect
the rules. At least I did not come across any of the official www
adresses which blatantly offend accessibility (private/commercial ones
are a different matter). But I know of at least two procedures started
at local level which might go up all the way through the instances and
maybe to the Supreme Court, which contest (local) authorities' non-
compliance with ADA principles regarding WWW site accessibility.
Which leads directly to he second point you made:
> Many of my clients are local government agencies and probably
> have never heard of the proposed rule making on access nor anything about
> the "W3C".
Which is no problem if they in fact do comply with what is widely
pulicised as www page layout standards (i.e., HTML), and they wouldn't
need to bother about intricacies of far-away up-in-the-hills bodies
like "W3C".
Though there is indeed some movement in Congress to make the established
standards for WEB publishing, i.e. public information made public at a
www site, somewhat more formally obliging: in terms of a (federal) law
which does not say anything more than that a public autority, financed
with (federal/public) taxpayer's money, has to keep to that aggreed
public standard of HTML as defined by the very public body that created
and maintains the whole thing.
Which in case of the WWWeb, is the "Word Wide Web Consortium", or W3C.
Which is nothing different from, say, the legally binding recognition
of an industry standard which made 110 Volts the valid specification to
which household appliances sold in the USA have to conform. The salient
point in this formal recognition is that you have legal recourse
directly against anyone selling you a toaster that explodes in your
face when you plug it in. There's a long row of such technical laws
which regulate our daily life - trafic lights, to take another example
(local authorities cannot just turn around the meaning of red-yellow-
green any more, and Orange County cannot decree that red and yellow is
for "go" and green or blue for "stop"). Sure you are still free to
have your private, closed go-cart circuit where "pink" would allow to
crash head-on, and sure you would have customers full of pride to have
survived it. Let it be.
But what happened when that Congress draft came on ?
Outrage on the "wired" front !
Declan McCullagh immediately took to the arms and defended the freedom
on the wwweb (to crash head-on?) in the sacred name of "the market"
against the "regulators":
> Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 14:43:59 -0400
> More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/
-- and citing:
> http://www.freedomforum.org/technology/1999/4/30handicapaccess.asp
> By Adam Clayton Powell III
> New U.S. law requires Web sites to become 'handicapped accessible'
What a horrible thought !!!
(Just imagine - even them could be able to read what's poured over the
public at large... [sorry, my polemical temper got the uphand in view
of McCullagh's paternalistic remark: "Of course any reasonable person
wants to be as considerate as possible of folks with disabilities, but
this would seem to go much too far. --Declan"]
Just to remind: the issue is nothing more than to comply with correct
HTML tags and mark-ups, which anyone in the trade (for serious) should
know anyway.
<besides> HOWEVER: If someone uses an "authoring" utility called
"Microsoft(R) FrontPage(R)" he/she will never arrive at that result -
that thing does *NECESSARILY* produce wrong HTML code because it is
designed to do that: it produces non-standard, not HTML compliant code
which *only* Microsoft-based "HTML"-interpreters can render
"correctly".</besides>
So much for the US side of it. You ask:
> If you want us to complain to the folks in EU-rope; who specifically do we
> complain to?
The upper official responsible at the present European Union Council
presidency is the Head of the Department for Information and Cultural
Affairs at the Finnish Foreign Ministery, Yrjoe Laensipuro:
eMail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In charge of the European Council of Ministers' public information is
one:
> Juergen Peter Esders
> DG F III - Public Relations
> Secretariat general of the Council of the European Union
> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Though this man is small chaff, just the front end of the bureaucracy.
I still have to find out the *real* responsible - the hierarchical head
of the whole shop (happens to be a German) hasn't any idea of it: another
beautiful example of organised irresponsibility (for which the whole
European Commission had to go, lately).
> What specifically do you recommend we complain about - is it
> just the lack of following what specific W3C "standard" protocol?
Exactly, and as simply as that: that they do not comply to *any* of
the W3C standardised HTML protocols; that they therewith exclude the
public from access to to public information, and that they actively
favorite a minority - less than ten per cent of the actual net/web
public(*) - to have access at all; and more over, that they plainly
illegally engage in corrupt practices (the EU Council incites web
visitors to download and to use specific private brand browsers in
order to access their site !).(**)
A few days ago there was a pertinent example cited on this very list:
The URL defintition:
> http://%31%39%36%33%35%35%33%30%32@%33%35%31%34%32%38%35%39%37%34/xxx/yyy.htm
-- which is illegal in terms of ITU (HTTP) and HTML (URL names) definitions.
The *only* means to attain and to access it in this syntax form is to
use MSIE-4+.
Look at the code of the Finnish EU "presidency" and you recognize some
similarities.
> Guidance will help us that don't write HTML as a native language :)
HoHo - HTML is just the Anglosaxon alphabet, 7-bit, strictly ASCII.
Quite native indeed. So where is the problem there ? <BG>
// Heimo Claasen // <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> // Brussels 1999-07-05
HomePage of ReRead - and much to read ==> http://www.inti.be/hammer
----------
(*) The basic calculation, in principle, is quite easy: keeping to
"the industry's" (i.e. the salespeople's) published data the stock of
PC units capable to run the appropriate (Microsoft-based) software,
which is capable to access these sites *and* which is net-connected,
amounts to less than ten per cent.
(**) The EU Council of Ministers' server invites to "download Netscape"
when a correctly HTML interpreting browser does not read the illegally
coded entry page.
I don't know of any public institution, in fact not even a private firm,
which would dare to demand a specific car made (not to speak of public
transport) as condition to assist to a public event they invite to.
-hc
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