[Bug 11557] Authors should not be allowed to specify roles on elements that they already have by default. It's redundant and encourages authors to add roles in cargo-cult fashion on the theory that this will improve their accessibility. See IRC for proof: http://kr

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=11557

--- Comment #8 from Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com> 2010-12-15 19:30:56 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #6)
> Allowing, or even worse, encouraging authors to use redundant markup to fix a
> temporary browser bug in this area really risks the cargo-cult problem that
> Aryeh cites in the OP.  I'm okay with pages doing things for temporary compat
> fixes that are discouraged officially; we've all had to do that.  That doesn't
> mean we should encourage them, if we can strike early enough before the
> "temporary compat fix" becomes "accepted wisdom".

Chrome is here today gone tomorrow, but with browsers like IE8 we're looking at
like a decade-long product lifecycle. These temporary bugs are not necessarily
that temporary.

Also bear in mind that people are starting to use HTML5 today (encouraged of
course by WHATWG), so what the validator decrees today can have impact on
people with disabilities today. We should err on the side of caution with
respect to that impact.

Again, I'm happy for a linter to point out that certain features would only be
required for backwards compatibility. I'm also happy for the official validator
to incorporate linting features clearly designated as such.

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Received on Wednesday, 15 December 2010 19:30:58 UTC