Re: alt and authoring practices

At 12:59  -0400 16/04/08, David Poehlman wrote:
>replace not describe.

I know that.  but what constitutes a workable replacement depends on 
the meaning of the image in the context of the page.  my last example 
was actually partly serious.  If I was doing a seminar for a bunch of 
well-educated jungian mythology specialists, and the page said "the 
seminar will focus on the following painting", I may well need quite 
an extensive description of the image to give those unable to see it 
an equal understanding of the content.

as I say, "how well-thought-out is the alt string" and "what is the 
alt string" are a difficult pair of questions to combine and get one 
answer.

>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Dave Singer" <singer@apple.com>
>To: "Anne van Kesteren" <annevk@opera.com>; "Steven Faulkner"
><faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
>Cc: "James Graham" <jg307@cam.ac.uk>; <public-html@w3.org>;
><wai-xtech@w3.org>; <wai-liaison@w3.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:43 PM
>Subject: Re: alt and authoring practices
>
>
>
>At 13:29  +0200 16/04/08, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>>On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:23:06 +0200, Steven Faulkner
>><faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>I don't quite follow the logic, but that is probably due to my
>>>incapacity to understand, but I am pretty sure you are making a
>>>worthwhile point and will cogitate on it further.
>>>
>>>>With nobody having data of usage on the Web the position of the
>>>>editor seems more reasonable to me.
>>>
>>>And that is your prerogative as a member of the working group, I
>>>myself do not place faith in the editor as being all seeing and all
>>>knowing in the absence of data.
>>
>>If my reasoning is correct the position of the editor is supported
>>by logic which is why his point seems more correct to me. Not
>>because he's the editor.
>>
>>(You assume a minority case is likely to occur more often and the
>>editor assumes a majority case is likely to occur more often.)
>
>I do wonder if we are trying to pack too much into one attribute.
>Really, this is brainstorming and may be a bad idea, but are we
>trying to pack "what is the alt string" and "how trustworthy is the
>alt string" into the same attribute, when it can't be done?  the rest
>is somewhat in jest...
>
>maybe we need a second attribute alt-trust-level:
>
>0   the string is empty or may as well be, or missing:  it's worthless
>5   the string contains facts even a stupid program could work out
>from the image itself (e.g. width and height)
>10 the string contains facts that were deduced automatically with
>some effort from the image itself
>15 the string contains automatically collected ancillary data not
>found in the image (e.g. time of capture, camera)
>20 the string contains human-entered data of a basic descriptive nature
>25 the string contains a rather detailed description of the image
>30 the string contains an analysis of the meaning of the picture as
>well as its description
>100 the string is a doctoral thesis, analyzing the image from every
>possible direction, including references to mythological, symbolical
>and historical references, history of the place/people shown,
>analysis of their health, state of mind, an aesthetic analysis of the
>composition, an analysis of the technical competence, and so on
>
>i'm guessing some people here think everyone should achieve level 20.  :-)
>
>by the way, can one provide alt strings in multiple languages and/or
>scripts?  what would happen if someone tried level 100?
>--
>David Singer
>Apple/QuickTime


-- 
David Singer
Apple/QuickTime

Received on Monday, 21 April 2008 07:09:40 UTC