Re: summary attribute compromise proposal

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> ...
> To be really clear, the purpose of the warning is to give authors the 
> chance to *consider* other approaches, not to outright rule out summary. 
> It wouldn't say "don't use summary", it would say something like "if 
> you're using summary, you may want to consider these issues and these 
> alternate approaches...". So an author could see the warning and decide 
> they have good reason to use summary="" anyway.
> ...

So a good reason would be that @summary is used in exactly the way it 
was specified?

"This attribute provides a summary of the table's purpose and structure 
for user agents rendering to non-visual media such as speech and 
Braille." (HTML4)

(potentially clarified)

The reason why I ask is the fact that authors do strange things to get 
rid of warnings, including doing wrong things (like blindly adding @alt="")

> I think this is appropriate, because HTML4 did not have any other 
> recommended techniques for table descriptions, so the warning will give 
> authors a good chance to consider other approaches.
> 
> It's also similar in spirit to validator.nu's "image report" feature, 
> which will help you ensure that your use of images is accessible but 
> without commanding one specific way to do it.
> ...

I agree it's good to make sure @summary is used for what it's there; I'm 
not yet convinced that an unconditional validator warning is the right 
way to get there, though.

BR, Julian