Re: Obsolete, deprecated, et al

John Foliot wrote:
> Based on your non-normative explanation however, the failure is with the
> "discouraged" aspect of HTML5's Obsolete.  WCAG 2 "encourages" the use of
> @summary and gives specific guidance and explanation of its usage.
>
> Making @summary obsolete and invoking the "discouraged" aspect is counter
> to WCAG 2 and is thus the reason for *not* making @summary obsolete.
> Again, this is not a technical problem, it is one of PR and perception -
> we simply cannot have 2 W3C documents officially disagreeing with each
> other. It sends the wrong message.  Since WCAG 2 is a Final Recommendation
> it is the Working Draft that must step back and re-align, and not
> vice-versa.

By your reasoning, the fact that WCAG 2 happens to have reached the 
Recommendation stage rules out the possibility of fixing the problem 
where it lies with WCAG 2. Given the significant evidence against using 
summary that has arisen during the development of HTML5, since WCAG2 
reached recommendation status, holding onto a solution that has been 
demonstrated to be a failure is wrong.

It is entirely possible that the PFWG can stop encouraging the use of 
summary attribute in future revisions of the WCAG 2 documents, and, 
IMHO, that is what should be done.

In fact, this is even easier considering that the specific advise to use 
the summary attribute is only present in a non-normative note [1].  The 
normative aspects of WCAG 2.0 are technologically agnostic, and there 
are a range of alternative solutions that can meet that criteria, many 
of which are already documented in HTML5.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20081211/html.html#H73

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Sunday, 2 August 2009 13:09:39 UTC