RE: Issue 31c: Meta generator

Julian Reschke wrote:
> 
> It seems to me that it's obvious that if de facto all non-hand authored
> pages do not need to provide @alt, then some of them will fail to supply
> @alt unintentionally.

A reasonable conclusion.


> Not having @alt checked when a generator is specified could lead to a
> situation where people add "generator" to suppress the warnings, and
> others *remove* generator to actually get them (although it would have
> made sense to include it).

Another reasonable conclusion.

 
> So making this depend on the generator information couples things that
> are only slightly related, and creates incentive to add bogus generator
> information when it shouldn't be there, or to remove it when it should
> be there.

And yet because there is no conclusive proof[1] that this might happen *in
the future*, ONCE THE META-GENERATOR EXCEPTION COMES INTO BEING, and only a
strong presumption that this is indeed what will happen, the Chairs have
chosen to not re-open this issue at this time.

[1: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2012May/0094.html]

(Or as I told a friend the other day, "...So because we have no *actual
proof* that giving a running chain-saw to a 6-year old is a dumb idea, let's
go ahead and give running chain-saws to 6-year olds...")


> 
> And yes, I should have stated that in the survey back then.
> 

For people to not understand this point the first time around is, shall we
say, an honest mistake and oversight. To willfully not recognize the
foolhardiness of continuing down this path today (after the use case has
been clearly articulated) - and actually do something about it - is a
completely different matter. The problem with proving future harm is that by
the time you have your proof, it is already too late.

JF

Received on Friday, 18 May 2012 16:08:27 UTC