On the note of law, I have seen over the course of this discussion, mention of laws pertaining to @alt and/or usability. Is it the HTML 5 working group's responsibility to adhere to laws regarding anything? If so, what are our guidelines on that? Because a great many countries have laws regarding accessibility, some even have laws regarding Web accessibility, so for us to even include "conformance with the law" as a guideline or guiding principle, we are setting ourselves up for failure. I propose, then, that any laws regarding accessibility or the @alt issue can and should be safely ignored by this group (but of course, they should be obeyed by all within their jurisdiction). J.Ja -----Original Message----- From: public-html-request@w3.org [mailto:public-html-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Mark Baker Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 11:42 PM To: public-html@w3.org Subject: Another view of alt optionality As if one was needed ... 8-O I just added this to the Wiki page on "alt"[1]; The primary purpose of a markup language specification like HTML is that it be able to be used to construct a document with a specific meaning as determined by a publisher, and to permit a consumer to reconstruct that meaning when in receipt of the document. Whether a given document uses alt text or not matters not to that purpose. The optionality of alt is therefore not the concern of the specification. Instead, it seems to be in domain of guidelines, best practices, and perhaps law. [1] http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/IssueAltAttribute Mark. -- Mark Baker. Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA. http://www.markbaker.ca Coactus; Web-inspired integration strategies http://www.coactus.comReceived on Wednesday, 7 May 2008 03:50:53 UTC
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