- From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>
- Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:26:25 -0700
- To: "'Silvia Pfeiffer'" <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>
- Cc: "'Richard Schwerdtfeger'" <schwer@us.ibm.com>, "'Leif Halvard Silli'" <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>, "'Charles McCathieNevile'" <chaals@opera.com>, "'W3C WAI-XTECH'" <wai-xtech@w3.org>, "'HTMLAccessibility Task Force'" <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
Silvia Pfeiffer wrote: > > > As Chaals pointed out almost 3 years ago, we can go through the whole > > process to emerge at the end with something that is essentially what > > @longdesc is today, but with a shiny new name. > > If after such an exercise we end up exactly at the same spot where > @longdesc is now, then indeed there is no purpose in giving it a new > name. However, it is an assumption that may not hold true. Instead, > all it achieves is that we keep spinning in circles. Is it really that > important to hold on to the name? 2 words: backwards compatibility, so yes, keeping the name is important. > Let's just get started on redefining > what we want, from scratch, without any prejudice as to where we will > end, and see where the journey takes us. If we end up in the same > place and it's all achievable with @longdesc, then we can still put > that label back on the effort. I support the effort to examine user requirements, as well as HTML5's requirements to provide appropriate technology to support both users and other business & legal requirements. I would welcome the opportunity to examine @longdesc to see if we can improve and expand its usefulness, but I think that tossing out the existing attribute without a viable replacement today does significant harm and benefits no-one. So rather than casting it as a blank slate, let's cast it as a period of refinement. I think in that light you would find wider support moving forward. JF
Received on Thursday, 15 March 2012 04:27:01 UTC