Re: HTML4.0 draft: comments re: inclusio

> Increasingly we will see; "you need plug-in X to view this page", or "this=20
> page is best viewed in browser X". Whether or not we like it - this WILL=20
> happen, as the public demand additional features faster than the standards=20
that should be   authors
not public.

> To say that web authors should limit themselves to only those features=20
> available in the HTML standards, and supported by minority browsers, when=20
> over 90% of web users have either IE3.x or Netscape3.x or higher, and an=20

If your numbers are right and if the goal is to get lots of hits for
advertising/ego purposes, you're right. Adding a sizzle plug-in or two
could easily attract more NSN/MSIE users than there are users of the
minority browsers.

However, I seriously doubt your numbers. While I'm pretty sure that
NSN/MSIE between them have 90% of the market, I'd be surprised if the
number of downrev users is as low as you claim. This is based on the
last time I went and checked the numbers for NSN, which has been a
while. What are you basing your claim on?

Of course, if the goal is NOT merely to rack up lots of hits, but to
distribute information about yourself and your organization, then your
HTML pages *should* be written to degrade gracefully, and be readable
in the minority browsers. Like PBS, users & creators may be in the
minority, but they're the people that the standards are for. The
majority - of both users and HTML authors - ignore the standards in
any case, for whatever reasons.

	<mike

Received on Friday, 12 September 1997 13:01:24 UTC