sharing the burden: authors and authoring tools

in reference to LONGDESC, Maurice Carey wrote, quote:
> It's just not practical for most people to write all that.
> Especially considering the fact that in the coming years the 
> majority of content on the web will be added by people with no 
> html knowledge at all. Yes they are the suppliers of content but 
> they are not html authors. Even when provided the ability to add 
> a longdesc for every image, few if any will.
> 
> ... I don't use it. None of my clients will. But if the 
> academics need it then leave it in. It won't "break the web" to 
> leave it in.
unquote

this is why the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines past and 
current work is SO important -- it isn't the author's fault how a 
particular tool implements a request or command -- it can either 
output valid structured code, and prompt for required attributes 
and expansions for abbreviations, or it can produce a very sour 
tasting tag soup...

for further reference, i suggest the following:

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines
* http://www.w3.org/TR/atag10

ATAG, Wombat Edition:
* http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG-wombat

ATAG 2.0 Working Group Draft:
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/2007/WD-ATAG20-20070530/WD-ATAG20-20070530.html

Authoring Tool Accessibillity Working Group:
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/

and, for other accessibility related dependencies, consult the ESW wiki
page located at:

http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AccessibilityDependencies

gregory.
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        Gregory J. Rosmaita: oedipus@hicom.net
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Oedipus' Online Complex: http://my.opera.com/oedipus/
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Received on Monday, 25 June 2007 20:46:21 UTC