- From: Michael[tm] Smith <mike@w3.org>
- Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2012 18:38:56 +0900
- To: public-html@w3.org, public-html-a11y@w3.org
In Hixie's related message[1] to the whatg list, there's another key point that I think should be added to the CP(s), and that I think will also help us to reach agreement. [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-archive/2012Aug/0004.html That point is to have a "trial period" for this new attribute, and to revisit this discussion after that trial period is over. So, specifically, the CP text should state: - We will add this new attribute on an experimental basis. - We should commit to revisiting the issue in a year or two. - At that time, we examine what impact has had on Web pages. Hixie also outlined some specific questions to ask at that time - - Is the attribute being (ab)used in inappropriate ways? - Is it used badly more than correctly? - Are validator users more happy, or less happy? - Are alt="" texts overall better or worse? - Have any generators started it rather than outputting bogus alt=""? I also wanted to note here that Henri recently added a statistics-gathering feature to the validator that could end up being useful for gathering stats related to this -- at least as far as giving us usage data on any validator options related to this. We may also add a message-filtering option to the validator, and that stats-gathering feature may also be able to give us some stats about classes of messages that users choose to filter (though that might be a challenge since the filtering options are purely client-side options that don't initiate any communication to the server). --Mike -- Michael[tm] Smith http://people.w3.org/mike
Received on Thursday, 2 August 2012 09:39:06 UTC