[Bug 22188] New: Suggesitons for the paragraph "One of the most common mistakes authors make …"

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=22188

            Bug ID: 22188
           Summary: Suggesitons for the paragraph "One of the most common
                    mistakes authors make  …"
    Classification: Unclassified
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: All
               URL: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-proposals/raw-file/default
                    /longdesc1/longdesc.html#longdesc
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Keywords: a11y, a11y_text-alt
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML Image Description Extension
          Assignee: chaals@yandex-team.ru
          Reporter: xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no
        QA Contact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: faulkner.steve@gmail.com, public-html-admin@w3.org,
                    xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no

The following paragraph in Section 3.0.3, IMHO has some unlukcy wordings:

]]
   One of the most common mistakes authors make that is easily repaired by user
agents is to use a description, instead of a URL that links to a description.
This means there is often plain text description in the content of an invalid
longdesc attribute.  Converting such attributes to data URLs is a simple repair
strategy that can help recover from cases where authors have made this mistake. 
[[

Problems - and suggested fixes:


Sentence 1: "One of the most common mistakes authors make".

             Question: How do you know? This is a spec for the future. Whether
it is true that authors make that error *right now* or will make that error in
the future, who knows? Please make that sentence past tence, about legacy
content or something similar. As is, it sounds like we can expect this error to
continue. (And if we can, then there is something seriously wrong ...)

              SUGGESTED FIX: "A common mistake in legacy content has been, "

Sentence 1: ", but easily repaired by user agents, "

             This phrase doeesn't add much (except that has the tone of 
telling vendors that don't perform such repair, that they are, difficult
people). Additionally, this new spec hopefully puts and end to this sort of
error being common! Further more, I suggest that what this phrase says, is
expressed in the last sentence (about converting to data URI).

              SUGGESTED FIX: Delete it.

Sentence 1: the phrase "… is to use a description"

               This prase doesn't sound like an error since the spec, after
all, is about descriptions .... Also, while the content is *text*, it isn't
necessarily a *independent description". Quite often, when there is text in the
@longdesc attribute, that text is argually more like a "longer alt" than a
independent description. I don't think the content _needs_ to be “blessed” with
the quality word "description". It would increase the agreement around the
spec, if the text used more neutral language.

              SUGGESTED FIX: "… is that authors typed a descriptive plain text
string directly inside the attribute, instead of typing a URL to an independent
description".

Sentence 2: The phrase "there is often plain text description". 

               Firstly, the phrase sounds like it should have been "there is
often _a_ plain text description", so *a least*, add the " a ". However, the
word "description" has the same problems as in sentence 1 - it is a positive
word when it could have been a neutral word. Also, it seems like the condition
expressed in the tail of the sentence could be emphasized more: "of an invalid
longdesc attribute". Namley, it is when the content is invalid, that one often
see the specific error that the content makes sence as plain text.

              SUGGESTED FIX:  "As a result, in legacy content, when the content
of the longdesc attribute is invalid, one frequently finds that the content
would make sense if interpreted as a plain text string."

The entire paragraph with all the changes above:

    ]] A common mistake in legacy content in legacy content has been that
authors typed a descriptive plain text string directly inside the attribute,
instead of typing a URL to an indepdendent description. As a result, in legacy
content, when the content of the longdesc attribute is invalid, one frequently
finds that the content would make sense if interpreted as a plain text string.
Converting such attributes to data URLs is a simple repair strategy that can
help recover from cases where authors have made this mistake. 
[[


If not in full, I hope for a partial acceptance.

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Received on Wednesday, 29 May 2013 03:57:28 UTC