[Bug 5823] Scope allowable on a td

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=5823





--- Comment #7 from Joshue O Connor <joshue.oconnor@cfit.ie>  2008-07-02 11:24:40 ---
(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #5) 
> > There is need for HTML 5 to have mechanisms to make complex data tables that
> > are 1) accessible  2) conform to HTML 5. I think this issue is worthy of more
> > consideration than seems to have been given here - seeing that it was open for
> > all of 10 minutes. 
> 
> The issue had been considered before the bug was opened when the data tables
> section was last updated, so the 10 minutes number is deeply misleading.

How is it misleading even slightly, never mind deeply? Come on. To mislead
there must be intent. I am responding to an issue that needs a response. My
intent is to further the discussion.

The issue I am sure has been discussed more thoroughly elsewhere (refs please)
but the closing of the bug is not the end of it. As I said, I don't think it
has reached a satisfactory conclusion and it seems to have been dismissed
prematurely, without discussion.

> From a purely accessibility point of view it very much is the issue because
> simpler presentations of the same data will be easier for more people to
> understand — particularly including those who can only interrogate the table
> one cell at a time — than a more complex presentation of the data. Therefore,
> for authors who care about accessibility the best possible advice is to make
> the table as simple and well structured as possible (authors who don't care
> about accessibility won't use anything as complex as the mechanisms described
> here anyway). 

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you. However, we still need accessible
mechanisms to deal with complex tables. It could be argued that much of the
tabular data available in the wild goes not even need to be in a table at all.

>Fobbing off the need to do work with an argument that amounts to "even if I did >the work, it would only cause debate about whether the feature I want is >actually needed so instead we should just declare that it is needed" is pretty unlikely to be productive.

Neither is that comment. Its not like that, thats not the way I operate.


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Received on Wednesday, 2 July 2008 11:25:22 UTC