Re: Invalid Tiki Wiki page

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[ CC only to w-v and Joseph ]

Joseph Reagle <reagle@w3.org> wrote:

>On Monday 02 June 2003 07:35, Luis Argerich wrote:
>>You can't distinguish between a valid site and a valid product. Our
>>product: TikiWiki is an open-source CMS that produces valid XHTML
>>output, it may have bugs but we certainly are trying to address the
>>whole specification.
>
>Hi Luis, the icons being use on [1] are not intended to distinguish
>between a "valid product" and a "valid html" page. They are only for
>indicating a valid page, of which [1] is not. (In fact, an entry from
>Mark Linburg even states that your "new homepage" is valid CSS and
>XHTML.) So please remove the icons or use them in accordance with their
>directions.

Hmm. Luis' point is perhaps that the default-as-shipped pages are valid and
thus include the icons, but that end users are free to produce invalid markup
and at that point there is little they can do about whether the badges are
there or not?

I'm not familiar with TikiWiki so I can't tell whether this is a relevant
possibility.


Of course, the fact that the TikiWiki home page is not valid markup and still
displays the assertion "Valid XHTML 1.0" does detract quite a bit from their
credibility, but it's still just a matter of them lying to their users and not
something that actually implicates the W3C (despite the appearance of the W3C
logo on the page).


We've historically taken the position here that the badges are merely a
convenience provided for authors to assert that they are in compliance with a
given standard. For W3C standards (Recommendations) the icons contain the W3C
logo, and for non-W3C standards they contain a different logo (e.g. the
Netscape or Sun logos). i.e. the logos do not reflect an assertion that the
W3C, as such, has pronounced the page in question to be valid, only that the
author of the page asserts it is valid and that the standard to which it is
valid happened to be produced by the W3C.

The main reason for that reasoning is that to allow more would put the W3C in
the uncomfortable slippery slope towards actually providing a certification
programme or service. And while that would certainly be a worthwhile thing to
do, it would be very expensive and hard to administer (not the least because
of the inherent legal pitfalls in such a service).


- -- 
My mom is a professional botanist, or, as her spousal equivalent described
it, they'll be out hiking in the woods, she'll see a plant off by the side
of the trail, run up to it, bend down, and start talking Latin at it.
                                                      -- Steve VanDevender

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Received on Friday, 4 July 2003 20:32:27 UTC