RE: [html4all] New issue: IMG section of HTML5 draft contradicts WCAG 1 & WCAG 2 (draft)

At 12:09  -0700 11/04/08, John Foliot wrote:
>(Slightly trimmed list to reduce overload)
>
>Julian Reschke wrote:
>>
>>  In general, requiring values for things that can't always be provided
>>  is a bad idea. It always leads to authors making up values, which
>>    makes the situation *worse* for the people depending on it.
>
>You know, I've heard this opinion expressed numerous times, but have yet to
>see any evidence at all to substantiate this claim.  Please explain in
>normative and technical terms how this is "worse", else remove the claim
>from the discussion.

Consider an image that is 'part of the content'

<img ... alt="an image">

tells the user agent that there is a useful alt string that is worth 
displaying to the user, which is a lie (the string provided is not 
useful), and

<img ... alt="">

tells the user-agent that the image is not 'part of the content', 
it's not worth describing, which in this hypothetical case is also a 
lie, whereas

<img ... >

tells the user agent the truth, that there is not a useful 
author-provided string.

Lies are "worse" than the truth.
-- 
David Singer
Apple/QuickTime