- From: Karl Groves <karl.groves@ssbbartgroup.com>
- Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 18:00:45 -0700 (PDT)
- To: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Cc: Andrew Sidwell <w3c@andrewsidwell.co.uk>, John Foliot <foliot@wats.ca>, public-html@w3.org, W3C WAI-XTECH <wai-xtech@w3.org>, wai-liaison@w3.org, HTML4All <list@html4all.org>, Matt Morgan-May <mattmay@adobe.com>
----- "Maciej Stachowiak" <mjs@apple.com> wrote: > On May 23, 2008, at 3:56 PM, Matt Morgan-May wrote: > > > > > On 5/22/08 10:33 AM, "Andrew Sidwell" <w3c@andrewsidwell.co.uk> > wrote: > >>> Well then, making @alt optional in the edge case of Flickr or an > > >>> inkblot > >>> test is then moot. Those edge cases will remain non-conformant, > > >>> and @alt as > >>> a mandatory requirement is a sealed deal, as optimising for edge > > >>> cases is > >>> not a reasonable thing to do. > >> > >> Flickr is hardly an edge case. > > > > On the contrary: Flickr is the _ultimate_ edge case. > > Flickr is an extremely popular site with millions of web pages. Look > > at the Alexa Global Top 500: > > http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none > > I see the following obvious photo sharing sites: > > #26 Photobucket > #34 ImageShack > #39 Flickr > #57 Fotolog > #59 ImageVenue > #84 Metroflog > #100 wretch.cc > > And the following social networks with photo galler features: > > #6 Myspace > #8 FaceBook > #11 Orkut > #40 Friendster > #56 LiveJournal > > Clearly photo sharing is one of the most popular activities on the > web. It is not an edge case but rather a major use case that should be > > given significant consideration. > > Regards, > Maciej According to a NetCraft Survey, there are 165,719,150 sites out there [1]. Your list of major photo-sharing websites is hardly a drop in the WorldWide bucket, as it were. Using the same Alexa data you cite, Flickr has a 3 mo. average reach of 1.706% of web users[2]. While 1.706% is certainly very respectable, given the context, it *is* still only 1.706%. This whole conversation about Flickr is a red herring anyway and all of these back & forth messages about it are detracting from the real issue: Failure to provide alternate text is a violation of every accessibility standard in existence. If this WG intends to work out a way to mark an image in a way that says, in essence, "alternate text isn't available or wouldn't be useful", then by all means continue the debate in that context. Red herring arguments about how popular a particular site is really isn't very productive and certainly hasn't lead to any useful solutions to the problem. [1] http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html [2] http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/flickr.com Karl Groves Senior Accessibility Consultant SSB BART Group karl.groves@ssbbartgroup.com 703.637.8961 (o) 443.889.8763 (c) http://www.ssbbartgroup.com Accessibility-On-Demand
Received on Saturday, 24 May 2008 01:09:25 UTC