Re: Brainstorming - abbreviations

Guillaume Guerin wrote:

> I totally agree with you on those points : an acronym is very different
> than an abbreviation. Joining them implies to exclude one of the two
> significations and if there's one who could eventually be excluded, imo
> it's not <accronym> but <abbr> which is not used for what it had bin
> made.

What do you perceive abbr being used incorrectly for?

> We shouldn't take the decision of keeping or not an element by watching
> the percentage of people who use it. We must to ask the following
> question 'Is this element useful?' and in this case the answer is
> positive, due to the number of acronyms used nowadays.

I believe you just argued that:

* Whether or not to keep an element should not be based on usage numbers.
* Acronym is a useful element because of its usage numbers.
* So acronym should be kept.

The question of whether acronym is used more would need to address, for 
one thing, the fact that Internet Explorer supports only acronym in some 
way, such as displaying tooltips, and does not support abbr.

If acronym is useful for valid semantic reasons, then fine.  But if its 
perceived usefulness is skewed by deficiencies in current browser 
implementations causing skewed overall usage numbers, then your question 
is not yet answered.

-- 
Bill Mason
Accessible Internet
w3c@accessibleinter.net
http://accessibleinter.net/

Received on Thursday, 15 March 2007 20:12:16 UTC