@MarcoZehe blogs about the 20th anniversary of the Web: [link to post].

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Marco! This is *NOT* what I said, and is a mis-characterization of my posting.

What I said, for the record, is:

“Telling content authors that a workable fallback solution *must* exist for would have either stopped BeSpin in its tracks, or challenged its creators to solve the problem before launching the application.”

I also stated:
“I want the specification to ensure that accessibility *happens*, that it is not simply a ’suggestion’, and every velvet glove needs an iron fist. And unlike some others, I have no issue being draconian about it. It does not have to be identical, it needs to be equivalent, and to say that this is not possible is narrow minded and unimaginative.”

(Read the full email here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Feb/0546.html)

*NEITHER* of these statements wished that BeSpin was never undertaken. I am not some luddite who wants plain-text websites in black or white, and to suggest otherwise is false. I am lammenting the fact that the current specification allows new elements to the next generation specification to exist – fully compliant – and not *directly* address accessibility issues. My beef is with the HTML5 specification, and *NOT* with BeSpin, which is sadly nothing more than a high-visibility example of how the current specification fails accessibility.

I freely acknowledge that BeSpin is an experiment – misguided in it’s approach perhaps (and others have concurred with *that* statement), but interesting and worth investigating. The real point I was trying to make is that if the HTML5 specification had sufficient accessibility requirements baked in, the BeSpin developers (creative and talented developers who already have indicated they had “thoughts about accessibility”) would have *HAD* to address them prior to releasing their proof-of-concept. Accessibility to adaptive technology such as screen readers would have been a design _requirement_, not a design _option_. This neither stifles creativity nor retards development any more than ensuring that buildings have wheelchair accessible doors and washroom stalls stifles architecture or building engineering. It’s a foundational requirement – work with it and stop bitching about it. Just like a building code, HTML5 must *ensure* that accessibility happens, not just hope for it.

So, to be crystal clear, I have issues with , not BeSpin. As a non-sighted user, you should be concerned too. If as currently specified in HTML5 remains with the requirement for accessible fall-back simply as an *option*, what do you think the web of 2020 will be like? If you, like many non-sighted users today, have trouble with Flash-only sites, or sites being poorly built with Silverlight today, what do you think your ‘user-experience’ will be like when every third website a decade from now leverages the untold possibilities of with nothing more than the ‘option’ of ensuring it will be accessible? Mandating that has an accessible fall-back mechanism (and I don’t specify what or how right now, only that it exist) is the challenge that HTML5 must accept – to unleash half-baked and without this requirement all but ensures that it will be abused, and millions of web-users will be disadvantaged by it in the future. All of the wonderful advances you celebrate in your posting may gradually erode, simply because new HTML elements being proposed and released today where short-sighted and flawed. This need not be, and that is the fight I fight.

There are many voices in the web accessibility community, mine is but one – perhaps a tad more militant than most, but get over it. However, I feel pretty confident in stating that the one thing the majority of web accessibility specialists will agree upon is that accessibility *MUST* be foundational, it cannot simply be a bolt-on solution applied at the 11th hour. Until such time as HTML5 accepts that truism and reflects that reality, there will be issues and I for one will point the finger. I don’t want to retard development, I want to ensure we get it right the first time, because my friend, there will be no going backwards.

Happy 20th birthday, World Wide Web! Read @MarcoZehe birthday greetings: [link to post] (via @gezlemon)

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Tools like Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, Visual Studio, and others have all hand-rolled their editor components using tools much like canvas–so we’re not sure the solution is to migrate Bespin to “contentEditable”. Instead, we’re very interested in working out a general solution to a11y for custom-rendered content, which seems to be an interest we share with many folks. (If in the end canvas proves a bad move, we can certainly migrate back to DOM elements, etc.; this is indeed a labs experiment.)

Please ping us on our mailing list (http://groups.google.com/group/bespin/topics) or IRC (#bespin on irc.mozilla.org) to join in the conversation.

Thanks!

Ben Galbraith
Bespin Team

I quite agree with your concerns – Marco and I had a brief conversation about that on IRC when BeSpin was announced. However there was a time when we didn’t have any accessibility APIs or WAI ARIA or the level of awareness about the issue we now have (still lots to do mind). So given enough concern, energy, imagination and constructive engagement with the BeSpin team …..

Marco Zehe: Happy birthday, world wide web! [link to post]

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The web is a big messy thing and will evolve rapidly just like the rest of our experiences. We have to embrace that while making sure it remains open to all.

So a big thanks to you and a big thanks to Mozilla for realising this and being a catalyst.

Cheers dude

RT: MarcoZehe Congratulated the web on 20 birthday, joined in on the a11y being a human rights issue discussion: [link to post]

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@MarcoZehe explains how valuable the web is to all and wishes it a happy birthday [link to post] Plus I agree re BeSpin we must try stuff

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via @gezlemon, @MarcoZehe on 20 years of the web, accessibility and the importance of experiments like bespin: [link to post]

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Marco Zehe mit dem besten Argument: Selbstbestimmung [link to post]

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