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Re: W3C Guidelines

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From: Geof Collis
Date: Jan 29, 2010 5:45AM

Hi John

Thanks!!

So it was a collaborative effort by the W3C an the web community?

cheers

Geof

At 07:57 PM 1/28/2010, you wrote:
>Geof Collis wrote:
> >
> > Hi All
> >
> > I'm having a bit of a debate where someone says that the members of
> > the W3c at the time wrote the guidelines for WCAG 1.0 and I'm
> > wondering if this is true. I thought that they got input from the web
> > community and based them on their feedback. Can anyone shed some
> > light on the process?
>
>Both statements are actually correct - the WCAG 1 Guidelines were written
>by members of the WAI within W3C, based upon feedback and input from
>affected community members (some of the early work however was initiated
>at the Trace Center via Gregg Vanderheiden). This is actually how most
>W3C Recommendations are developed, but back in 1997 - 1999 there were
>fewer voices involved in the discussions. (It's interesting to note some
>of those early voices, including Gregg Vanderheiden [Trace], TV Raman [now
>at Google], Mike Paciello, Phill Jenkins [IBM], Jon Gunderson
>[Urbana-Champaign], and Chuck Letourneau [one of the original Co-Chairs,
>and my mentor in the early days].
>
>Going back over the W3C email archives of the time will show the relative
>progress path that WCAG 1 took, and actually makes for interesting reading
>if you like history. The archives can be found at:
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/
>
>Also related to that list was the WAI Interest Group, whos archive can be
>found at:
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/
>
>Cheers!
>
>JF
>