RE: Summary of Bugzilla comments on checkpoint/guideline 3.3

And then, of course, there's Yvette's brilliant use of the <sarcastic>
tag as an example of an xml element that browsers wouldn't know how to
render.</grin>

John


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-----Original Message-----
From: Kynn Bartlett [mailto:kynn@idyllmtn.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 2:08 pm
To: John M Slatin
Cc: Joe Clark; WAI-GL
Subject: Re: Summary of Bugzilla comments on checkpoint/guideline 3.3



On Wednesday, January 21, 2004, at 06:19 AM, John M Slatin wrote:
> One quibble with your quibble: I wasn't quarreling with or objecting 
> to Kynn's "sarcastic comment" about the opacity of the checkpoint.  I 
> was noting it for the record (the actual comment was something like, 
> "Is this English?"). And I don't think any of us disagree with the
> sentiment: The "plain language" drafts of this and other WCAG 2.0 
> guidelines came about because the Working Group recognizes that we 
> need to do a much better job of writing clearly ourselves

For the record, I was puzzled by the reference myself, so I went back 
and
looked up what my "sarcastic comment" was.  And I chuckled to myself,
and nodded affirmatively:  Yes, that WAS a sarcastic comment!  The
characterization of it was fully correct.

However, I can see how someone who DIDN'T look it up -- and thus didn't
know what the comment was -- could read John's description as being an
objection to the comment (rather than an agreement).  It is natural to
read "sarcastic comment" as meaning "snarky, snide, inappropriate
comment" rather than "darkly humorous and ultimately well-intentioned
tongue-in-cheek comment."

So, I'm not bothered (and I got a further chuckle from Joe taking
offense on my behalf), but in the future, it might be good to either
quote the comment or use different phrasing which is unequivocal in
conveying whether something is being condemned or not.

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                     http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain                http://idyllmtn.com
Author, CSS in 24 Hours                       http://cssin24hours.com
Shock & Awe Blog                                http://shock-awe.info
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Received on Wednesday, 21 January 2004 17:51:09 UTC