Re: Footnote discussions

Which has very little to do with the topic at hand.  You can control
literally ANYTHING in HTML / CSS.   This discussion is about whether there
should be default presentation rules or presentation requirements.  I think
that answer is clearly "No".  Because if there *were* such rules, they
would be wrong for basically everyone.  Every publisher is going to want to
have their own style.  It's important.  For me, for AT implementors, and
for people who rely upon AT, the real issue is one of semantics.
Publishers need to mark up the content so it can be interpreted.  They
also, and independently, need to make it pretty.  These are not
conflicting, but they are orthogonal.

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 3:18 PM, Bill Kasdorf <bkasdorf@apexcovantage.com>
wrote:

>  Plus frankly publishers just plain WANT to control these things and will
> not accept not being able to.
>
>
>
> Doesn't mean the user can't override some things, but you can't eliminate
> the publisher's ability to design the experience (print or digital) as she
> wants.
>
>
>
> *From:* Dave Cramer [mailto:dauwhe@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Friday, February 06, 2015 4:02 PM
> *To:* Matt Garrish
> *Cc:* Bill Kasdorf; Liam R E Quin; Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken; Shane
> McCarron; David MacDonald; Robert Sanderson; George Kerscher; W3C Digital
> Publishing IG
> *Subject:* 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
>
>
>



-- 
Shane McCarron
Managing Director, Applied Testing and Technology, Inc.