Re: 48-Hour Consensus Call: InstateLongdesc CP Update

Charles McCathie Nevile wrote:
[...]
> If there was an alternative that solved the requirements, and would
> resolve the issue, I originally expected that it would be implemented.
> The closest candidate was "aria-describedat" or something along those
> lines - i.e. an attribute that does the same thing with a different name.
>
> It didn't happen. While people have held off from supporting longdesc
> because the issue is open, they haven't done anything very useful
> instead. Beyond renaming the attribute I haven't seen a proposal that
> offers a useful replacement, and I consider that a renamed attribute is
> not an improvement.

Some very good points here, and I sense that if we aren't careful - this 
is exactly what we could end up with. So why not start from here and 
just move forward? Expending surplus cycles to just get back to where we 
*were* at - in one form or another - isn't wise. There is absolutely no 
compelling evidence that I have seen to suggest that having @longdesc in 
HTML5 is in anyway detrimental. Beyond, some vague editorial notion that 
we can do better (which I do actually agree with) but exactly *how• we 
can do better just hasn't been sufficiently articulated.

The SNR ratio on this topic is very fragile, so I urge caution from us 
all to ensure that we have a solid basis to progress in a substantive 
manner. We have to be practical, and the the TR clock is ticking.

Between the jigs and the reels, the best basis from which to move 
forward is to reinstate @longdesc. Many thanks to Laura for her 
perseverance and hard work.

+1 from me.

Josh

Received on Monday, 17 September 2012 08:11:53 UTC