- From: Katie Haritos-Shea <ryladog@earthlink.net>
- Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 15:18:43 -0400 (EDT)
- To: John Foliot <foliot@wats.ca>, "'L. David Baron'" <dbaron@dbaron.org>
- Cc: 'Maciej Stachowiak' <mjs@apple.com>, 'Karl Groves' <karl.groves@ssbbartgroup.com>, 'Andrew Sidwell' <w3c@andrewsidwell.co.uk>, 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>
FWIW - I completely agree with John Foliot clear statement about the essense of the issue here. Katie Haritos-Shea -----Original Message----- >From: John Foliot <foliot@wats.ca> >Sent: May 27, 2008 1:36 PM >To: "'L. David Baron'" <dbaron@dbaron.org> >Cc: 'Maciej Stachowiak' <mjs@apple.com>, 'Karl Groves' <karl.groves@ssbbartgroup.com>, 'Andrew Sidwell' <w3c@andrewsidwell.co.uk>, 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> >Subject: RE: Is Flickr an Edge Case? (was Re: HTML Action Item 54) > > >L. David Baron wrote: >> >> Applying all the requirements we apply to mass media to content >> creation for small audiences doesn't make sense. We have to consider >> the costs and benefits of meeting these requirements. If we enforce >> them on everyone, one thing we'll do is force a lot of this content >> off of the Web entirely, which would make it accessible to much fewer >> people. > >This is not what is being debated here however. What is being suggested is >that the technical specification be written to open a loop-hole that so far >has been closed: images must contain @alt if they are to be deemed >conformant. That millions of images lack @alt, or a valuable @alt value is >not open to discussion - I will concur that they exist. This alone is not a >reason to reverse the course and suggest that it's somehow OK, so we'll >re-write the spec to say that it is. It's not. Since the current penalty >for not having @alt is... NOTHING... I cannot see how the new spec helps >anyone save those who want conformant code without doing all that is >required to ensure conformance. > >We are talking about a technical specification here: black and white rules >that establish how to be conformant. Sites and authors will then chose to >be conformant or be non-conformant. Sites such as Flickr - if they *want* >to be conformant, will do what they can to ensure that from a "code" >perspective they are outputting correct code: if a code fragment requires a >string from an external author, that is beyond their control, but if the >conformance requirement exists that an attribute must exist, they can at >least ensure that the placeholder exists and a means to provide a value for >that attribute is present. > >Today, for a web page to be "conformant" the specification calls for a DTD. >No DTD, not conformant. Yet Google's pages have no DTD, and their web pages >"work" just fine: Google made a choice and that is theirs to make, but since >arguably *the* most visited webpage on the internet today is non-conformant, >then why are we insisting, even in HTML 5, for a DTD? > >There is no "technical" reason to reverse the requirement for a mandatory >@alt save that it makes it easier to have conformant pages. It does nothing >to improve accessibility, it does nothing to enhance or improve the next >generation of HTML, it does nothing for the very people who most need to >have a textual alternative to an image. If, as suggested, most photos are >viewed by a very few (your telephone analogy), then what is wrong with >adding alt="" to those millions of images viewed by the very few? The whole >argument falls flat on it's face. > >JF > > > * katie * Katie Haritos-Shea Section 508 Technical Policy Analyst 703-371-5545 People may forget exactly what it was that you said or did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.......
Received on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 19:19:47 UTC