[Bug 6606] generic 3rd-party <mark>, Smart Tags, and Accelerators prevention

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=6606


Ian 'Hixie' Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|REOPENED                    |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |WONTFIX




--- Comment #21 from Ian 'Hixie' Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>  2009-09-22 08:35:24 ---
> In section 2.2, insert these paragraphs immediately after the Note and before
> the paragraph on categories of UAs ("User agents fall into several
> (overlapping) categories . . . .") and preferably assign a subsection number
> (also subsectioning the rest of the section):
> 
> "User agents must render a conformant document consistently with the author's
> intent represented by the document and its style, except to the extent
> otherwise chosen by the user. This may allow a range of renderings for a single
> document; if so and to that extent, the user agent must render a conformant
> document in a way that is consistent with the author's intent represented by
> the document and its style, except to the extent otherwise chosen by the user.

This is already required by the spec.


> "Interactivity must be rendered so that the user sees the state of all
> interactive controls before any change resulting from interactivity.

That doesn't seem compatible with what pages rely on.


> User
> agents must not assume the user's intent except to the extent otherwise chosen
> by the user.

I have no idea how one would test this.


> "With respect to such rendering of conformant documents and of such
> interactivity, each such choice by a user shall be clear to the user even if
> the user is an ordinary user.

I have no idea what this means.


> Considering the user as an individual, if such a
> choice is made by an individual other than the user or, if permitted under this
> specification, by the user agent, each such choice and the distinction from the
> absence of all such choices shall be clear to the user even if the user is an
> ordinary user. A user agent's capability to make each such choice clear must
> not be capable of being disabled.

What is this trying to say?


> "Submission of a form must be with the postcompletion consent of the user
> treated as an ordinary user. Such postcompletion is after completion or
> operation of one or more controls or, if completion or operation of every
> control is optional, after an opportunity to, at the user's immediate option,
> manually complete or operate or autocomplete or auto-operate all controls even
> if none are completed or operated.

I seriously have no idea whatsoever what this means.


> "An ordinary user is an individual or other user who has only minimal knowledge
> of the sum of how computers, user agents, networking, the Internet, the World
> Wide Web, websites, scripts, markup, HTML, XHTML, and styles work. The ordinary
> user may have more than minimal knowledge, and may have great knowledge in
> noncomputer subjects, but must not be expected to. For example, almost no
> ordinary user has knowledge of any relevant promulgated standards but may
> instead base their knowledge on limited practical experience with one user
> agent and various websites without knowing which ones are standards-compliant
> and which are not.

It seems highly unusual to write conformance criteria which depend on the
education of the user.


> Because many websites that are frequented by ordinary users
> have a variety of appearances not specifically sanctioned by any publicly
> disseminated standards or specifications, an ordinary user must not be expected
> to know that a new design has a new meaning, unless that new meaning is clearly
> explained to that user at the time of exposure or soon before.

I guess this is saying "Users might not understand things they haven't seen
before"? If so, that seems obvious and it would not be necessary for us to say
it explicitly.


> An ordinary user
> must not be expected to be familiar with computer or user agent features,
> including features that provide help and menu commands, since, for ordinary
> users, many such features may have been disabled or placed beyond reach by an
> institution permitting use of a computer.

This is definitely out of scope for the HTML5 specification.


> "Absent such a choice by a user, for all documents having the same HTML markup
> such a rendering shall be uniform over time across all such documents
> regardless of website and for all documents lacking any HTML markup such a
> rendering shall be uniform over time across all such documents regardless of
> website."

I don't understand what value this adds to the specification.



I disagree with the premise of the request — user agents should be allowed to
render things however they like, so long as it is consistent with the
document's semantics.

If you disagree with this, please escalate this to the working group chairs.


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Received on Tuesday, 22 September 2009 08:35:35 UTC