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Re: New issue: error recovery practices (Re: Proposed TAG Finding: Internet Media Type registration, consistency of use)

From: Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@simonstl.com>
Date: 30 May 2002 09:13:04 -0400
To: "www-tag@w3.org" <www-tag@w3.org>
Message-Id: <1022764384.813.3036.camel@localhost.localdomain>

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 23:59, Keith Moore wrote:
> 
> > I would be stunned if a client whose site looked horrible in their
> > preferred browser would be content with "but the W3C validator says it's
> > perfect". 
> 
> almost nobody cares what the validator says, because the validator isn't 
> that good a predictor of how things will look to the customer.
> 
> but if browsers told content-providers things like "I don't understand 
> this page, it probably looks horrible to your customers" then it would 
> tighten the feedback loop.

If I believed that changing the messages the validator provided would
have a positive effect, I would suggest it.  However, my real point is
that the browser is the ultimate arbiter of what works, not the
validator.  I don't think any level of improvement to the validator -
except perhaps turning it into a browser - is going to change that.

If you don't modify user-agent behavior, the feedback loop will remain
limp and mostly useless.

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com
Received on Thursday, 30 May 2002 09:07:42 GMT

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