2. The idea that accessibility for all can be put in one box is an illusion. A lot of lively debate including this one of what disabled people need, seems to attempt to drive down the lowest common denominator route. Where in fact Disability is wide ranging. Physical, Sensory, Cognitive issues that can vary from Simple to Profound and Complex Disability.

3 The process is constant development and design, where one can, with what resources one may have available but I wonder sometimes if Accessibility guru’s I have heard and read are doing it for themselves and getting a good living out of it.

If you wonder by the way, I have nearly 60 years experiance of living with disability and also work with disability organisations in the UK.

It tires me out some of the controversy and prefer the rational debate to sniping and put downs.

as a forum to discuss (mainly) html/css, accessifyforum has certainly been valuable . however, it has not grown into a place where accessibility is discussed, regardless of technology…a place where dialog is fostered among the many different stakeholders (content developers, user agent developers, users with disabilities) and where solutions are explored that go beyond html/css/flash/etc, beyond WCAG 1.0 or even WCAG 2.0. this makes me think of the ideas behind the tangram model http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/briefing-101/html/
we need to move beyond WCAG and beyond the ideal of “universal accessibility” – laudable in principle, but a pipe dream (until we get some hardcore solutions like servers with content stored in all sorts of formats and CC/PP negotiation between browser and server). i’m not talking ghetto-isation, or the old “text only version for blind users” misconceptions…but an aknowledgment that, in certain situations, it’s just not possible to provide one solution that works equally well for all audiences, even with adaptation.

(from http://accessify.com/news/2007/02/mike-davies-thoughts-on-the-state-of-accessibility-barcamp-london-2/#comment-3909)

I’m sure Mike is not attacking any of the sites he mentions – but thinking out loud about how to take things to another level. How do we positively engage people who are presently turned off by accessibility (and the accessibility community).

Yes, there’s always improvements to be made. But that is life. When do we ever get to the stage where we say ‘Well I can’t improve that any further – It’s finished’? We don’t, because we’re always striving to improve. Especially when it comes to fast moving technologies like the web.

GAWDS succeeds as being an index of accessible web developers.
AccessifyForum succeeds as a place of discussion about web accessiblity.

I think there may be an expectation for these organisations to be more than that, and to that end may not meet the needs of everybody.

How can an open forum fail if it is able to stir up a discussion and change one’s thought process? I will agree that the nature of an open forum is not without it’s issues, but it’s better than having a small, closed group that only certain people with certain ideas push through, honestly. It smacks of elitism.

How about having a small group to initiate matters, then also take into account the public perception of the state of affairs and build that into the methodologies and best practices? I would rather belong to this type of group than the former. So, I feel that I’m moving in the right direction.

The fact that this very discussion is creating ripples across the standards-based community, which I think is a great thing. Let’s stir things up and figure out the best way to move forward.

Mike Davies’ initial comments on universality and accessibility confused me, until I read Joe Dolson’s comments that clarified universality _as_ accessibility. I’m glad this was clarified as I read the article in a completely different way until this point was brought up. (Thanks Joe)

My $0.02 CAD…

I and litteraly thousands of others find the Accessify Forum very useful. I couldn’t agree more with this article. While there are those who believe valid HTML and CSS are all there is to know, they’re often put straight by the more practical, well experienced, others on the AF.

While I’d love to see the utopian forua described (Open, grass roots, all encompassing, focussed, progressive …) I doubt we can very quickly magic one up. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but…

The one thing I can thank Mike D for is I will now be looking at other forums (starting with this one). But I can’t look at Joe Clake’s ‘Glimmer of Hope’ as its closed…