RE: @longdesc scope (was: HTML Media Transcript, Issue-194: Are we done?)

John Foliot, Thu, 5 Jul 2012 07:48:13 -0700:
> Chaals McCathieNevile wrote:

>>> Thus, ideally, the proposed longdesc spec text should give better
>>> hints about what a "long description" and "long text alternatives"
>>> are - that it can in fact be a transcript. [4]
>> 
>> Maybe. I think that is relatively editorial.
> 
> I actually kind of disagree here. There is a world of difference between a
> longer textual description about a movie, and the actual transcript, which
> is essentially closer to the script or screenplay of the movie, than the
> description of the movie.

Would you say that it is a world of difference between a transcript for 
a movie on one hand, and a long description for a single graphic that 
contains sequential frames from a movie or a comic/cartoon[1][2] on the 
other?

Remember, that when it comes to @alt, then we have quite detailed 
descriptions of how to author texts for @alt, depending of the context 
and nature of the graphic. Shouldn't we think just as contextual about 
long descriptions?

Of course: to describe and to transcribe are different processes. With 
different result. I would say that 'to describe' has an element of 
creativity in itself. Whereas 'to transcribe' is much more mechanic. I 
would also say that that which one writes/says when making a 
description, subsequently could be transcribed by others. And if we see 
'to transcribe' as essentially transferring some excerpt from a written 
or spoken account to (another) form of written account, then there are 
many cases when a quite direct, textual transcription of the graphical 
content is possible. And in the most basic of these textual 
transcription cases, namely when the graphic represents text, math or a 
textual logo, then the transcript goes into the @alt rather than into 
the @longdesc. And the same goes also if each frame of the 
comic/cartoon is an independent graphic - the transcript goes into @alt.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon
-- 
Leif Halvard Silli

Received on Saturday, 7 July 2012 08:14:47 UTC