Re: summary="" in HTML5 ISSUE-32

[The CC list was ridiculous; I've left in the groups,
but removed all individuals apart from Maciej and Joshue]

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> So if such information is put in summary, it would not be equivalent. It 
> would be providing information to non-visual users that cannot be 
> learned from seeing the table. It seems that summary is used at least 
> sometimes to convey such information. Would you agree that summary 
> providing additional information (not information about table structure, 
> or a summary of the table's conclusions, but brand new info that is not 
> in the table at all) violates equivalence?

But is anyone suggesting that "additional information (not information
about table structure, or a summary of the table's conclusions, but
brand new info that is not in the table at all" should be put into
the contents of summary attribute ?  My reading of Joshue's message
is that he most certainly is not : he is proposing that a /summary/
of the table be put into the contents of the summary attribute,
which seems eminently reasonable to me.  Even if an author /were/ to
put "additional information <etc>" into the contents of the summary
attribute, would you then want to classify the document as non-
conforming ?  I hope not, in exactly the same way that I hope you
would not want to class as non-conforming a document that put
"additional information <etc>" into the contents of an ALT attribute
that could not be found in the visual realisation of the image itself.

Philip TAYLOR