VPAT for MediaWiki

A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template® (VPAT®) is a standard format for information with information about usability of a particular software for people with disabilities. VPATs are the expected form of an Accessibility Conformance Report in the context of U.S. government procurement of software products, and such a report may be required by acquisition or IT staff in government before they buy or install software. The VPAT is a specific table design developed and trademarked by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), and the registered trademark sign is appropriate. "VPAT 2.0 users agree not to deviate materially from the template format provided by ITI, and to use the service mark (“®”) where appropriate."

A VPAT contains information regarding how an information and communications technology (ICT) product or service conforms with Section 508, the de facto set of conditions to be discussed in the context of accessibility and U.S. government acquisition. These are not exactly requirements, and are phrased indirectly, because different requirements are appropriate for computer tools and programs of different types, used by different staff, and it's not clear any specific requirement has the force of law exactly.

Terminology

 * In the context of a VPAT, the WMF is a 'vendor' of software. A VPAT is often offered by a software vendor, but in this case we'll hack it together open-source style. The authors need to make claims about things the software will EVER do, e.g. use red/green distinctions or make sounds, so either software developers need to be involved or the authors of the VPAT report need to say "as best we know, this can happen and that cannot".
 * Versions: VPAT 1.3 is obsolete.  The new design as of 2017 is VPAT 2.0 and we'll try to address that deisgn here.  For more, see https://www.itic.org/policy/accessibility/vpat.  The new format is here: https://www.itic.org/dotAsset/d432b9da-3696-47fe-a521-7d0458d48202.doc.  It's a substantial document, which we'll put into wikitext here.
 * WCAG 2.0 refers to the W3C/WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
 * Mandate 376/EN 301 549, refers to the European Union’s “Accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe”
 * The updated Section 508 is made a rule here but it's talked ABOUT there, without being made clear what's required or functionally what a software person has to do
 * ITI is an organization, whose home web site is here: http://www.itic.org
 * We need context-specific definitions of these formal references used in most rows: Web, Electronic Docs, Software, Closed, Authoring Tool. Closed seems to refer to closed functionality.  Web refers to software that is used through a browser, I guess, and we might therefore say "software" doesn't apply to mediawiki?  Need to find why these five terms recur all over VPAT 2.0s.

Early draft VPAT Accesibility Conformance Report
MediaWiki Accessibility Conformance Report VPAT® Version 2.0 – October 2017
 * Name of Product/Version: MediaWiki, version xx
 * Product Description: Wiki software
 * Date:
 * Contact information: (someone @ Wikimedia.org?)
 * Notes: MediaWiki is the central software offering Wikipedia which is widely used by persons with disabilities. (Can we point here to a recent review of or commentary on MediaWiki accessibility? Let's persuade as well as checking various boxes below.) This Accessibility Conformance Report covers Section 508 categories and WCAG Level A, but not WCAG Level AA or AAA, or the EU standard as some VPATs do.
 * Evaluation Methods Used:

Applicable Standards/Guidelines
This report covers the degree of conformance for the following accessibility standard/guidelines:

Terms
These are the categories used in the Conformance Level column:
 * Supports: The functionality of the product has at least one method that meets the criterion without known defects or meets with equivalent facilitation.
 * Supports with Exceptions: Some functionality of the product does not meet the criterion.
 * Does Not Support: The majority of product functionality does not meet the criterion.
 * Not Applicable: The criterion is not relevant to the product.
 * Not Evaluated: The product has not been evaluated against the criterion. This can be used only in WCAG 2.0 Level AAA.