[Bug 21778] Define a user experience for when the @longdesc is the empty string

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=21778

Charles McCathieNevile <chaals@yandex-team.ru> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
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             Status|NEW                         |ASSIGNED

--- Comment #4 from Charles McCathieNevile <chaals@yandex-team.ru> ---
Leif, it would be helpful to understand the content of your discussion with the
iCab guys - and even more helpful to have their comments on the list directly.

Since a blank longdesc is technically a URL, the behaviour you are requesting
would be a wilful violation of HTML, something I am reluctant to do without
some very clear justification.

While in the normal case we can expect a blank link to be an error, it is well
known that a lot of longdesc is still done badly. I think we are in an
analagous position to alt 15 or so years ago, when it seemed to be used more
often for attempted SEO than as a text alternative. 

A site might actually use server-side magic to provide something useful, as the
current set of specifications has allowed for over two decades, although I
don't know of any such case and would not be surprised if we didn't find one.

My inclination is to wontfix this, but I think we should have further
discussion first.

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Received on Wednesday, 1 May 2013 09:44:15 UTC