Re: Obsolete, deprecated, et al

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> John Foliot wrote:
>> Based on your non-normative explanation however, the failure is with the
>> "discouraged" aspect of HTML5's Obsolete.  WCAG 2 "encourages" the 
>> use of
>> @summary and gives specific guidance and explanation of its usage.
>>
>> Making @summary obsolete and invoking the "discouraged" aspect is 
>> counter
>> to WCAG 2 and is thus the reason for *not* making @summary obsolete.
>> Again, this is not a technical problem, it is one of PR and perception -
>> we simply cannot have 2 W3C documents officially disagreeing with each
>> other. It sends the wrong message.  Since WCAG 2 is a Final 
>> Recommendation
>> it is the Working Draft that must step back and re-align, and not
>> vice-versa.
>
> By your reasoning, the fact that WCAG 2 happens to have reached the 
> Recommendation stage rules out the possibility of fixing the problem 
> where it lies with WCAG 2. Given the significant evidence against 
> using summary that has arisen during the development of HTML5, since 
> WCAG2 reached recommendation status, holding onto a solution that has 
> been demonstrated to be a failure is wrong.

Sorry, but no significant evidence has arisen against using summary. It 
is all happenstance, circumstantial, and anecdotal. It is tainted, to 
the point where any conclusions derived from the "evidence" must be 
suspect.

>
> It is entirely possible that the PFWG can stop encouraging the use of 
> summary attribute in future revisions of the WCAG 2 documents, and, 
> IMHO, that is what should be done.
>
> In fact, this is even easier considering that the specific advise to 
> use the summary attribute is only present in a non-normative note 
> [1].  The normative aspects of WCAG 2.0 are technologically agnostic, 
> and there are a range of alternative solutions that can meet that 
> criteria, many of which are already documented in HTML5.
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20081211/html.html#H73
>

Shelley

Received on Sunday, 2 August 2009 13:20:35 UTC