[Foundation-l] VPAT

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The United States government uses MediaWiki in several places. When you
consider that most of the money donated to the Wikimedia Foundation is given
by Americans and, when you consider that complying with a standard for
usability is something that is a strategic goal, I do understand your pov
but I do not agree.

What we can do is check out to what extend we already comply. Given that we
have several visually impaired editors even admins, the quality of our
software is not that bad. Understanding what needs to be improved to comply
with a standard like VPAT gives us a measurable goal to realise what is a
strategic goal.

By inviting the American government to work with us on this, we may even
find that given that MediaWiki is Open Source / Free Software the government
will do the testing for us.

All in all, I advocate to use the question "to what extend does MediaWiki
comply with VPAT" as an opportunity.
Thanks,
      GerardM

On 20 February 2011 08:51, Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de> wrote:

> Since we are not funded by the government and we have no relation what
> so ever with the US government I don't see what VPAT has any relevance
> to us. If the US government think MediaWiki doesn't fulfill the
> condition, they had to use another wiki engine I am afraid.
>
> Greetings
> Ting
>
> On 16.02.2011 19:49, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > Given that Unites States government agencies do use MediaWiki, it is
> quite a
> > relevant question. Given that we provide such an important service on a
> > worldwide scale, I would be interested in learning the answer to the
> > question. Is that possible ?
> >
> > In the final analysis we can only achieve our aims well when we achieve
> > highly in this respect.
> > Thanks,
> >       GerardM
> >
> > On 16 February 2011 19:43, Nathan<nawrich at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 1:40 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> >> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >>> Hoi,
> >>> What IS a VPAT for 508 in the first place ?
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>       Gerard
> >> See: http://www.section508.gov/
> >>
> >> Refers to a plan for compliance with a regulation designed to force
> >> federally funded software products/services to be accessible for
> >> people with disabilities.
> >>
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>
> --
> Ting
>
> Ting's Blog: http://wingphilopp.blogspot.com/
>
>
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