Re: fear of "invisible metadata"

On Jun 18, 2007, at 10:24 AM, Gregory J. Rosmaita wrote:

>
> Lachlan Hunt wrote, quote:
>> No, even if the summary attribute were added to HTML5, it
>> certainly shouldn't be required.
> unquote
>
> why not?  CAPTION is akin to ALT text - it provides a terse  
> description
> of the object that cannot be visually perceived; the summary attribute
> itself serves the same purpose as LONGDESC (which provides a detailed
> description, orientational material, etc.)

ALT should not be required either. It leads to pointless alt="" on  
images that have no reasonable text equivalent, just to satisfy  
conformance checkers. And that is actively harmful, because AT can't  
tell the difference between a semantically null image and a  
semantically meaningful image with no text alternative.

Regards,
Maciej