Re: Flickr and alt

Philip TAYLOR wrote:
> That is a rather rude observation, Boris : if (as I believe)
> David is unable to see what he types, his speech synthesiser
> may well render "president" as aurally indistinguishable
> from "precedent".

Interesting.  That had not occurred to me, since in fact they are quite 
aurally distinguishable in all the pronunciations I've heard.  If there 
are others of which I was not aware, I apologize.

>  > [A]ll authors [1] must be forced (whether by civil laws or by 
> authoring specifications) to produce only content that is accessible to 
> all users [2].
> 
> No, not "forced".  "Required", "expected", whatever.

These are different things, though.  I can accept "required", but 
"expected" is not the same thing at all (should vs must in RFC-speak). 
I stand by my statement that this is not a reasonable requirement.  I do 
think it's a reasonable expectation.

> then no-one is planning to "force" that user to do otherwise,

I have heard several proposals that the spec require all UAs, including 
graphical ones, not provide any rendering for <img> elements that lack 
@alt.  So I'm not sure your statement is correct.  Not that I think 
these proposals are going to go anywhere, but "no-one" is a stretch.

-Boris