RE: CFC re ISSUE-31 Missing Alt

Laura Carlson wrote:
>
>
> I wonder if it would make sense for the  @missing (or
> @alt-not-asserted, or something of that  nature) to have a value that
> could suck in the repair (whatever that ends up being
> crowdsourced/metadata/etc. )

Actually, I think it could simply be a Boolean switch - true/false or 
missing / missing="missing"

>
> That way the alt value and and the repair value would be completely
> separate.

Yep, I would prefer to de-link these two concepts completely. Seems to me we 
went 'round this earlier when we were discussing Issue 66 and the whole 
heuristic repair topic:

 "This text should be stricken, because it gives the message that this is 
viable now, and a reasonable substitute for @alt. Neither is true.

 The reason for this is that images themselves are only place markers for 
what the author intends to express. It is the author, then, and not the 
image, that is most responsible for determining what fits best as alternate 
content. And for this reason, no automated tool can possibly claim to 
sufficiently repair missing @alt content. This sentence only serves to make 
that less clear.

 User agents may use any technology they choose to improve the user 
experience for users with disabilities. Such an implementation may in fact 
have positive effects, in certain cases. However, it is not necessary to 
specify this, particularly if by doing so the necessity of human-created 
@alt is made less than perfectly clear."
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/ImageHeuristics

(This last sentence is what I consider to be extremely relevant here - we're 
not saying that crowd-sourcing or metadata mining might not be possible, 
only that it muddies the water again by suggesting that these options might 
give the author a Get-out-of-Jail free card.)

>
> Thoughts?

This is a position already endorsed by the TF.

JF

Received on Thursday, 29 April 2010 14:56:50 UTC