[thelist] accessability guidelines - good/bad?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aylard James J [mailto:jaylard@equilon.com]
> 	There are two questions in play that have gotten 
> blurred in the heat
> of discussion: 1) Are accessibility guidelines reasonable? 
> and 2) should the
> Federal government mandate their use?

Their use had to be mandated in the physical world...

> 	Actually, the Justice Department has concluded that the 
> ADA applies
> to "private" web sites. Taken literally, this means *all* 
> non-government web
> sites. Quite frankly, I am amazed at the high percentage of 
> Evolters who are
> in favor of the Federal government asserting widespread legal 
> control over
> the web, simply because the stated end is "good".

Okay, I knew this. However I was of the opinion that after a few legal
challenges, this would be met with the same sense of skepticism as requiring
all homes in the United States to have wheelchair-accessable ramps and
bathrooms. The Federal government asserts widespread control over every
other form of communication we have today. Why do you expect the web to
remain above this? Even though I don't relish the thought of the government
mandating certain things, uncontrolled anarchy is not the U.S.'s answer to
creating a cooperative market/environment (at least not yet ;-). I feel that
most major sites that cater to the public should meet federally mandated
accessability guidelines that make sense. In much the same way, I feel that
children should not be able to enter porn sites. In the ideal
self-organizing, wild-n-wooly frontier of the internet, such
guidelines/rules were not needed or cared about. These days, as the web
matures - with a large part of it becoming a consumer-oriented
communications network - these types of public aids are a necessary evil.

My $.02

Jay