- From: Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>
- Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 20:26:46 +0200
- To: Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
- Cc: Judy Brewer <jbrewer@w3.org>, Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net>, Michael Smith <mike@w3.org>, Michael Cooper <cooper@w3.org>, HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
Steve Faulkner, Wed, 11 May 2011 16:42:43 +0100: >>I'm not open to act as if I agree if I don't agree: what I have said in >>the CP I can also say in a poll, and the chairs would then have to >>consider it. > > Nobody is asking you, what I am asking of the group (a11y > taskforce) is if there is consensus to move ahead with the > proposal i have provided or after considereing your proposal > the group thinks other wise. It is fair enough to ask the group like that. But I feel that when you threat to withdraw your proposal unless you have your way, then you put pressure on me to withdraw my own CP: >>> [...] If the group wishes to reconsider this >>> in light of Leif's arguments then the move to re-open the decision >>> would be defunct and I would withdraw my proposal to re-open. Otherwise, what I say in my CP I say because I don't feel that the chairs would be convinced by your CP. I feel that the argument you make that support for @title is decreasing is extremely far from the truth (the truth is the opposite), and hence I doubt the chairs will agree with your arugment. However, it might well be that chair agree with you - I have miscalculated them before. And also, if it is not the chairs you want to convince, then it perhaps doesn't matter. Likewise, if you are unconvinced, then you should of course pursue what you are convinced about. Meanwhile, we are seeking to put @longdesc into the spec - a feature for which there *isn't* device independent access, as much as I have gotten it. (Now you will of course reply that the issue is @title/@alt and not @longdesc, but nevertheless.) And I agree strongly with Laura in having put into the proposed spec text that UAs should provide device independent access to @longdesc. Can we ask anything less? Should we postpone putting @longdesc into the spec because vendors haven't promised to provide device independent access to @longdesc? Likewise, if there is a general problem with @title w.r.t. device independent access, then we need to put in HTML5 that UA must provide device independent access to @title - if vendors are unwilling to provide such support, then then entire feature must be deprecated. Hence, I'm not comfortable with using this Decision as an opportunity to spread general ideas about the inaccessibility of @title (as told elsewhere, on your job blog you don't even think authors should use <abbr title="">). If @title is that problematic, then we should be serious about deprecating @title as such. Can't the @alt issue be argued without antagonism towards @title? Therefore, my CP focus on other problems with the the Decision. And, just as Judy in her text on figcaption, I take myself the liberty to not plainly accept the map that the chairs have drawn as correct: things can be weighted differently from what they did. Therefore I bring in my reasoning with regard to negative effects of the generator exception into the title/alt issue. PS: Under all this I also sense that our disagreement about whether @alt="" should be equal to role="presentation", plays a role. At least it does for myself. After all, the only time you bless the use of @title, is when the image also has an empty @alt and the IMG thus - per your reading of how it should be and in agreement with Ian but against what ARIA says - is considered presentational. Really, we should solve the question about wether empty @alt equals role=presentation before this title/alt issue! PPS: Even if HTML5 adopts your CP, it is still - as long as the view that an empty @alt equals role=presentation - still possible to fake it: Just insert an empty @alt and fill the @title with content. Voila. Then you and HTML5 will consider it valid. Whereas ARIA supporting AT as well as all non-blind users will still get access to both the image and its title. Best way to serve everyone? -- Leif H Silli
Received on Wednesday, 11 May 2011 18:27:16 UTC