Re: Process objections to FPWD

Hi Silvia,

On Mon, 10 Dec 2012 06:35:12 +0100, Silvia Pfeiffer  
<silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com> wrote:

chair hat off.

> I agree with this suggestion of making @longdesc "obsolete but  
> conforming".

Is this a late objection to publication of a First Public Working Draft,  
or an editorial suggestion?

> I would pair it with a proposal of a new attribute that provides links  
> to longer content descriptions for more than just the <img> element.
I presume this is not an objection of any kind, just an expression of  
desire to see a work item.

While I welcome any effort in that direction, I have explicitly not done  
that for this specification. As I have said before, my goal is to produce  
a specification for longdesc, that is at least a good enough specification  
that it could be considered for Recommendation.

I would be very happy to see longdesc overtaken in reality by something  
better, and I welcome efforts to produce that. Meanwhile, I believe it is  
worthwhile to specify longdesc since it is already used, promoted, and  
implemented in various places - and as you imply below, to varying degrees  
of quality.

> In addition, I would like to see a rationale document for the @longdesc  
> extension spec that addresses the often-heard objections in a succinct  
> manner. In >particular I'd like to see an explanation of how the  
> different browsers different in their implementation and interpretation  
> of the value of the @longdesc attribute >(some versions of IE mapping it  
> to a description rather than a link) and how AT deal and fix this  
> situation. I believe this is crucial for people to understand

Again, is this an objection to requesting that HTML publish a FPWD of the  
extension spec?

Documenting implementation in more detail would be a good thing to do.  
Note that there is a lot of material already - Laura Carlson collected  
plenty of information, and a few extra notes have been added recently in  
this group.

I'll start looking for a round tuit (after a coordination meeting, just in  
case that doesn't come up with one).

> - on top of the author misuse of @longdesc, which is far less harmful.
>
> This rationale document can be just in the wiki, since it's additional  
> information for the decision making rather than part of the actual  
> specification.
As well as email I use bugzilla  to follow issues raised on the spec. I'd  
prefer to use tracker, but it depends what the group is comfortable with.

If the TF resolves to adopt responses such as those I have proposed, they  
would be worth putting into a wiki. Frankly, I don't see a lot of value in  
a wiki page reproducing my own often-heard responses to the often-heard  
objections.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
chaals@yandex-team.ru Find more at http://yandex.com