- From: John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>
- Date: Fri, 6 May 2011 11:11:31 -0700 (PDT)
- To: "'Gregory J. Rosmaita'" <oedipus@hicom.net>, "'Laura Carlson'" <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>, "'Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis'" <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>, "'Charles McCathieNevile'" <chaals@opera.com>
- Cc: "'HTML Accessibility Task Force'" <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
Gregory J. Rosmaita wrote: > > > > > That section is based on Gregory's words. Gregory, are you okay with > > dropping the follwing section? > > > http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/InstateLongdesc#Hidden_M > eta-data_Fallacy > > no, i am NOT ok with dropping the Hidden Metadata Fallacy -- this is > a fundamental philosophical/logical principle +1 to Gregory's opposition. The "Hidden Metadata" argument has been continually asserted by those who are opposed to reinstating @longdesc as a flaw with the attribute. It isn't, and we need to ensure we say so clearly and forcefully. We have a number of editing tools that expose the functionality/ability of associating a longdesc html file or ID fragment to an image both at original authoring time, as well as at editing (change) time. We have a number of user agents (both visually based and screen readers) that expose the presence of @longdesc to the end user, and accessing the value of that data is as fundamental as it gets on the web: follow the link. Using the Hidden Metadata argument, it can be argued that microdata and RDFa data is "hidden", as it is not usually visually apparent on the screen to sighted users. With the recent evolution of touch-screen devices (and Steve Faulkner's recent enquiries to browser vendors http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011May/0072.html) it could also be argued that the value of @title is quickly becoming "hidden" metadata, as no touch-screen device that I am aware of today expose @title values to *any* of their users: using the "Hidden Metadata argument" perhaps we should drop @title from the spec too? I agree with Gregory that we should not drop this section, although I reiterate my suggestion that it be noted at a high level in the Change Proposal and that the actual body of text be moved to a reference page and linked from the CP, in the interest of brevity and succinctness in the final CP. JF
Received on Friday, 6 May 2011 18:12:00 UTC