Re: Footnote discussions

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 1:29 PM, Matt Garrish <matt.garrish@bell.net> wrote:

>
> It feels wrong to me (if you can't guess!) that in a digital world
> publishers should have a say in where notes appear and how. They should
> only be providing the context for rendering the notes and leave it to the
> user and their reading system to determine the most appropriate
> presentation for them. I don't even see this as an "accessibility" issue so
> much as a simple usability issue for everyone. We all benefit from better
> control of our reading experiences.
>
>
I would agree that "we all benefit from better control of our reading
experiences." I would disagree with it being wrong for document authors to
have a say in how notes, or any other element, is rendered. Allow users
options? Absolutely. Allow users to override author stylesheets?
Absolutely. But not to have a say? That seems extreme. Design is one way of
communicating the author's intent to the reader. A given design might not
work for all readers, but seems to be a worthwhile starting point.

Years ago we published a book by Stephen Colbert. Every paragraph had a
marginal note (which would have role="snark" in a perfect world). The
placement of those notes in relation to the text they comment on was
important to the story. Making them endnotes or popups would not serve the
text. I argued against releasing an ebook of the title at the time, because
I didn't think we then had the technology to honor the author's intent.

Dave