[governance] Where are we going?

[Norbert Bollow]

Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:

> Norbert Bollow wrote:
> > Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:
> 
> >>> http://intgovforum.org/Substantive_1st_IGF/SwissInternetUserGroup.txt
> 
> >> Take a look at "Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS)" at 
> >> http://www.w3.org/PICS/
> > 
> > Did you read what I wrote?  I'm talking about a _certification_
> > process, which verifies e.g. accessibility for people with
> > disabilities, where after successful certification sites get the
> > right to use a certification mark called "Internet Quality Label"
> > or whatever.
> 
> I did read the first document, but, being mainly a techie, I tended to 
> focus on the "how is this done" parts rather than "why is this being 
> done" parts.  Sorry if our minds didn't meet - such is the grief of 
> electronic discussions.

Hmmm... does that mean that I need to rename the proposal, in order to
be properly understood?  The document does not at all mention in any
way the (as you correctly point out, long solved) question of how
"label" metadata can be attached to a document, but rather the
proposal is about the process through which orgnizations can gain the
right to advertize themselves as complying with a specific, yet to be
determined set of norms, for example in the areas of making online
stuff accessibile to people with disabilities, and privacy protection.

The proposal uses the word "Label" only because that's a word that
people use for referring to certification marks (legally a category of
trademarks).

> It's not that I'm unsympathetic.  For the last year I've had need to 
> carry around a card bearing a symbol, a symbol whose use is limited by 
> law, that indicates a certain class of disability.
> 
> So it's not that I'm in opposition, but rather that I really wonder how 
> far from a technical foundation a matter of internet governance can go 
> before it needs to drop the "internet" adjective?

This particular proposed certification mark has the word "internet" in
its name because what we're proposing is an international certification
amrk for websites and one for internet services.

I'd consider it obvious that deciding whether to create such a
certification mark, and to administrate it if such a certification
mark is introduced, clearly are matters of internet governance.


Claude Almansi <claude.almansi at gmail.com> wrote:
> When I forwarded Norbert's  e-mail to the discussion list of the
> Ticino accessibility project, someone there also said that it was
> necessary to review existing evaluation/labeling tools before creating
> new ones.

Sounds like there's another misunderstanding of what the proposal is
about, since it does not mention "tools".  Of course, the (national or
regional) certification organizations which will get authorized by the
proposed "IQL Foundation" can make use of tools.  For example, for
websites where most pages are derived in an easily-verifiable way from
a template, the accessibility expert of the certification organizations
might carefully review the template and and then use an automated tool
to find all pages which are not based in a straightforward way from
that template.  What tools these accessibility experts will use, and
whether the existing tools meet their needs or whether there are needs
for improvements, that is in my opinion aomething that accessibility
experts can discuss among themselves and/or with programmers or
software vendors -- that's IMO not a question of internet governance.

>  PICS is definitely something that the foundation that should
> elaborate the implementation of IQL should examine carefully.

I've never looked at PICS in any detail, but it's obviously possible
to use it if you really want to.  But if PICS is essentially dead
(no-one seems to be using it), why not use the DCMI term conformsTo
instead?

> Also, for the accessibility part of IQL, maybe another model than
> the Swiss one could be considered: the Swiss accessibility model is
> based on levels A and AA of WCAG 1.0, which date back to 1999 and
> both the internet and accessive technology have changed a lot since:
> in fact, WCAG 2.0 should be published soon.

The people behind the Swiss accessibility label are planning to update
the criteria for their certification when WCAG 2.0 is published but
until then, "WCAG 2.0" is not definite enough that one could base a
certification on it.

> Moreover, the EU is about to publish its own directives on
> accessibility, which will be based in the Italian law and
> application/evaluation rules.

While I am aware of the debates around evaluation rules for
accessiblity certification, I'd rather avoid getting myself or the
proposed IQL Foundation getting bogged down in that kind of
discussions.

In my opinion, as soon as in any given country or region there is a
reasonably credible certification organization (in the sense that
you can trust them that when they certify something, there is then
a good chance that it's actually reasonably conveniently usable by
most people with visual or motoric or hearing disabilities),
organizations in that country or region should be able to get
certified there for the accessibility aspect of the IQL.

If an organization wants the right to provide certification services
also to clients outside their country or region, I would suggest that
their certification procedure must be strict enough that anything they
certify will satisfy all major sets of evaluation rules.

Maybe this point will become moot soon when WCAG 2.0 is published,
if it succeeds in becoming "the" standard for evaluation criteria,
but I'm not holding my breath.  If I'm correctly informed, the status
of WCAG 2.0 has been "should be published soon" for a long time...

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                    http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG  http://SIUG.ch

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