International Liaison Group

ILG Mission

The WaSP International Liaison Group (ILG) is an international collective of web professionals promoting the global use of standards to ensure an equitable Web.

العربية (Arabic)

مجموعة التنسيق الدولي (ILG) لمشروع المعايير القياسية (WaSP) للWeb هي منظمة مكونة من محترفي تطوير المواقع من جميع انحاء العالم لتعزيز استخدام المعايير القياسية و تحقيق قابلية الوصول للجميع.

简体中文 (Chinese, Simplified)

WaSP 的国际联络组 (ILG) 由各国的网页专家组成，致力于推广网页标准，促进 Web 的平等访问。

繁體中文 (Chinese, Traditional)

網頁標準計畫 (WaSP) 旗下的跨國際聯絡團隊 (ILG) 集結了全球網頁專家，致力推廣網頁標準，以促成網站的存取平等。

Česky (Czech)

Mezinárodní kontaktní skupina Web Standards Project (WaSP International Liaison Group – ILG) je celosvětovou iniciativou webových odborníků prosazující všeobecné používání standardů k zajištění rovného přístupu k Webu.

Nederlands (Dutch)

De Internationale Contactgroep (ILG) van de WaSP is een internationaal collectief van professionele webontwikkelaars dat wereldwijd het gebruik van de standaarden wil bevorderen om zodoende een gelijkwaardig Web te waarborgen dat openstaat voor allen.

فارسى (Farsi)

گروه رابط بين الملل (ILG) پروژه استانداردهاي وب (Wasp) جمعي است جهاني از حرفه ايهاي وب كه براي توسعه دادن كاربرد استانداردهاي جهاني و تضمين دسترسي بهتر به وب بهمديگر پيوسته اند.

Français (French)

Le groupe de liaison internationnal du WaSP (ILG) est un collectif international de professionnels du web promouvant l’utilisation mondiale des standards afin de s’assurer d’un Web équitable.

Deutsch (German)

Die WaSP International Liaison Group (ILG) ist ein internationaler Zusammenschluss von Web-Experten zur Förderung der weltweiten Verwendung von Webstandards, um ein offenes Internet zu gewährleisten.

Ελληνικά (Greek)

Το Διεθνές Γκρουπ Επικοινωνίας (ILG) της WASP είναι μια ομάδα επαγγελματιών του Web απ’ όλο τον κόσμο που στόχο έχει να προβάλλει τη χρήση των standards για ένα καλύτερο Web.

Magyar (Hungarian)

A WaSP (Web Standards Project) Nemzetközi Összekötő Csoport (International Liaison Group – ILG) webes szakemberek nemzetközi kollektívája, akik egy pártatlan Web biztosítása érdekében a szabványok globális alkalmazását támogatják.

Íslenska (Icelandic)

WaSP International Liaison Group (ILG) er alþjóðlegur samvinnuhópur atvinnufólks í vefmálum sem hefur það að markmiði að efla notkun hnattrænna staðla til að tryggja jöfnuð á vefnum.

Italiano (Italian)

L’ILG (International Liaison Group, Gruppo di cooperazione internazionale) del WaSP (Web Standards Project, Progetto per gli Standard Web) è un gruppo internazionale di professionisti del web che promuove l’uso degli standard a livello mondiale per garantire che il web sia uno strumento equo, accessibile e fruibile per tutti.

日本語 (Japanese)

WaSPのInternational Liaison Group （ILG）は、公正なWebを確かなものとするためにWeb標準のグローバルな利用を促進する専門家らからなる、国際的なグループです。

한국어 (Korean)

WaSP의 International Liaison Group (ILG)은 웹의 공정한 사용을 위하여 표준의 국제적인 이용을 촉진하기 위한 웹 전문가 그룹입니다.

Polski (Polish)

WaSP International Liaison Group (ILG) jest międzynarodowym kolektywem profesjonalistów z branży internetowej promujących globalne wykorzystanie standardów mających zapewnić porządek w sieci.

Português (Portuguese)

O Grupo de Ligação Internacional (ILG em inglês) do WaSP (Web Standards Project) é um colectivo de profissionais da Web que promovem o uso global dos standard para assegurarem uma Internet igualitária.

Русский (Russian)

Международная контактная группа при WaSP (WaSP International Liaison Group — ILG) — интернациональный коллектив вебпрофессионалов, пропагандирующий широкое применение стандартов с целью построения справедливого Веба.

Castellano (Spanish)

El Grupo de Enlace Internacional (ILG en inglés) del WaSP (Web Standards Project) es un colectivo internacional de profesionales de internet que promueven el uso global de los estándares para asegurarnos una Internet igualitaria.

Svenska (Swedish)

Web Standards Projects internationella sambandsgrupp (WaSP International Liaison Group – ILG) är en internationell grupp av webbspecialister som förespråkar globalt användande av standarder för att säkerställa en rättvis webb.

Tagalog/Filipino (Tagalog/Filipino)

Ang Internasyonal na Grupong Tagapamagitan (ILG sa Ingles) ng WaSP ay isang internasyonal na samahan ng mga propesyonal sa Web upang himukin ang pandaigdigang paggamit ng mga pamantayan para makatiyak sa isang pantay-pantay na Web.

More Languages

Don’t see your language? WaSP is a grassroots volunteer organization. All the translations you see here were created by friends of WaSP. Want to volunteer to translate content into your language? Contact the ILG Co-leads directly.

The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.

Recent Task Force Buzz

hAccessibility redux?

By Patrick Lauke | June 23rd, 2008

Thanks to Sebastian Snopek from the International Liaison Group (WaSP ILG), this post is also available in Polish: Wtórny hAccessibility?.

Fanning the fires of the ABBR pattern debate, the developers at BBC Radio Labs announced today that they’ll be removing the hCalendar microformat from their programmes listing pages, pending further accessibility testing or the establishment of a more accessible alternative.

Unfortunately there have been a number of concerns over hCalendar’s use of the abbreviation design pattern. […] Until these issues are resolved the BBC semantic markup standards have been updated to prevent the use of non-human-readable text in abbreviations.

As with the debate over a year ago, the concerns raised are not about microformats as a whole being inaccessible. They’re not even strictly about the hCalendar microformat itself. The concerns are purely centred around the (mis)use of the ABBR design pattern.

Call me naive, but — for me at least — the problem seems to boil down to a few simple points:

microformats are extremely useful, and, if implemented in an accessible way, can yield massive usability improvements for all users
the ABBR design pattern is demonstrably broken — no ifs, no buts, no “it’s an edge case”, no playing the numbers
a handful of alternatives to the use of the ABBR pattern already exist — for instance, the BBC could quite happily carry on using hCalendar, avoid ABBR altogether, and instead opt to have machine-readable information present in the page as a piece of invisible supplementary data; however, this seems to be a rather inelegant (and not well publicised) implementation
further alternatives to ABBR have been discussed at length (such as proposals to put machine-readable data inside the class attribute), but no real consensus has yet been reached — meaning that current microformat-consuming tools and services are unlikely to support them.

In many discussions, the problem of microformats and accessibility is often miscast as an either/or proposition. Retorts of “if you have accessibility concerns, don’t use microformats” or “if you don’t want to mark up dates in a machine readable format, don’t use microformats” are a classic reductio ad absurdum, and do nothing to move the issue forward. Why should the desire to provide machine-readable data for tools necessarily be antithetical to the desire not to thrust the gibberish of something like the full ISO 8601 date/time in the face of end-users (as expanded ABBR title that’s read out by screen readers under certain conditions, visually presented as a tooltip to sighted mouse users, or clearly present as clear text in the markup when CSS is unavailable)?

Here’s hoping that high-profile announcements like the BBC’s (and those less public, but nonetheless significant ones) will help create some momentum and a concerted effort to find a robust substitute for ABBR. And, once that’s happened, can we finally take this flawed design pattern out of circulation, educate the early adopters of microformats about the new and improved pattern(s), and move on to bigger and better things?

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