Re: referencing W3C recs in the Techniques document

aloha, ian!

i appreciate your concerns, and would like to amend my proposal to extend
_ONLY_ to dated recommendations, although, given the experience of the HTML4
guidelines and the disappearing RFCs, even that caveat leaves the proposal open
to doubt...  and yet, as far as W3C recs are concerned, i have a reasonable
expectation that they will reside at www.w3.org in perpetuity, so i'd still
like
to see them explicitly/directly linked to the WAI Guidelines suite!

gregory.

At 10:37 PM 11/23/99 Ian Jacobs wrote:
>"Gregory J. Rosmaita" wrote:
>> 
>> aloha, ian!
>> 
>> second, i'd like to re-raise an issue that would make the techniques 
>documents
>> a hell of a lot more usable...  why do all of the links that refer to 
>specific
>> attributes and elements defined in W3C recommendations lead only to a 
>top-level
>> link, located in the References section of the document, for the relevant
>> recommendation?
>> 
>> case in point -- under the Accessibility Topic "Link Techniques", located at
>> (long URI warning)
>> http://www.w3.org/wai/ua/wai-useragent-techs-19991121#link-techniques
>> appears the following technique:
>> 
>> quote
>> Use :before from [CSS2] to clearly indicate that something is a link (e.g.,
>> 'A:before { content : "LINK:" }')
>> unquote
>> 
>> the bracketed term quote CSS2 unquote is a hyperlink that leads not to the 
>CSS2
>> description of the :before and :after pseudo-elements, as anyone reading the
>> document for the first time might reasonably expect, but, leads instead to a
>> link in the References section of the Techniques document, which points to 
>the
>> top-level URI for the CSS2 recommendation...  would it not be more logical 
>and
>> informative (not to mention more user-friendly) if the hyperlink pointed 
>users
>> to the pertinent portion of the CSS2 rec, which in this case would be:
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-CSS2-19980512/generate.html#x2
>> rather than leave the reader to fend for his or her self once he or she is
>> dumped unceremoniously at the top level URI for the relevant rec?
>> 
>> i know that this would entail a considerable effort, and so i volunteer my
>> services to assist in any such transformation,
>
>I'll have to think about this one. I'm torn. For resources that
>are stable (e.g., dated W3C Recommendations) it may not hurt. For
>unstable resources, there is significant risk of links being
>broken and we can't fix them once the document is published. 
>
>I'll take an action item to talk this over in the Team. Also,
>what do others in the WG think?
>
> _ Ian

--------------------------------------------------------
He that lives on Hope, dies farting
     -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1763
--------------------------------------------------------
Gregory J. Rosmaita <unagi69@concentric.net>
   WebMaster and Minister of Propaganda, VICUG NYC
        <http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/vicug/index.html>
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Received on Tuesday, 23 November 1999 23:09:10 UTC