Re: conflation of issues or convergence of interests?

At 01:12 +1000 UTC, on 2007-08-01, Lachlan Hunt wrote:

> Sander Tekelenburg wrote:
>> At 12:10 +1000 UTC, on 2007-07-29, Lachlan Hunt wrote:

[...]

>> I completely agree though that both should be available to users. In fact,
>> that's what I am arguing for when I say that UAs must make equivalents
>> discoverable and accessible to users. Seems to me we agree.
>
> I agree in principle.  It seems we just disagree about the way to do it.

Maybe, yes. But if we agree that *that* is the main obstacle, that at least
allows us to focus on that. Up until now it wasn't clear that those of
"Position B", as Maciej put it, agree with the above. (And well, just because
you agree doesn't mean that others of "Position B" agree.)

[... identifying equivalents]

> Would you have any reason to assume there were any significant
> differences? I just don't understand why you think natural language is
> incapable of expressing that they are alternatives.  Although perhaps
> there may have been some minor ambiguity, I think the revised text (as
> explained in a previous post) is now sufficient.

Yes, it seems better (although now I don't exactly remember what it was
before). But it took you work. Wouldn't your job have been easier if you
could have used the same markup that you use for all cases where you mean to
convey that something is an equivalent? Doing it through prose, you will need
to think of the best possible prose for each and every case. And no matter
how clear you think your prose is, there will always be users who do not get
it.

Btw, the only way it is clear, to me, now, is through the word "transcript".
It is not clear to me that the Power Point presentation is intended as an
equivalent. Is it? :)

[...]

> In what way exactly, are you imagining that your user agent could expose
> the fact that they are alternatives, any better than could be expressed
> using natural language in the document?

In the "consistency across sites" way.


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>

Received on Thursday, 2 August 2007 02:59:47 UTC