Re: feedback requested on WAI CG Consensus Resolutions on Text alternatives in HTML 5 document

On Wed, 19 Aug 2009, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> Ian wrote:
> > Steven, if you could describe for me the problem that exists in the 
> > HTML5 spec that your proposal solves, I would be more than happy to 
> > address said problem, and would be grateful for your proposal.
> > 
> > Without a description of a problem, however, I do not intend to edit 
> > the spec on this topic.
> 
> I believe Steven has now given much of the needed explanation.

I've tried going through the e-mails on this thread again, but I really 
haven't been able to find a description of a problem that we're trying to 
solve here.

Going through the cases you listed that you didn't list as cases that no 
longer were being advocated as reasons to change the spec:

> C) title / sole-image-in-paragraph exceptions not allowed as exceptions 
> in the case of unknown image contents:
> 
> Steve explained here that this is because title does not render like alt 
> with images disabled or in text-only browsers: 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0881.html
> 
> Henri added that autogenerated title would possibly violate the spirit 
> of ATAG2: 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0852.html
> 
> Jan Richards suggested a "missing" marker as a way to flag images with 
> deliberately omitted alt, so that autogenerated descriptive text would 
> not be necessary but conformance checkers could continue to flag errors. 
> Henri agreed this might be a viable way to resolve the seeming conflict 
> between HTML5 and ATAG2 requirements: 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0980.html

I don't really understand what problem we're trying to solve here. Why 
would we give authors using WYSIWYG tools a license to not care about 
making their pages accessible? That seems backwards.


> E) Requested reference to WCAG:
> 
> Steve gave some explanation here and drew comparisons to HTML4 and SVG: 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0885.html

I would be open to including references to documents that could help 
authors and implementors -- UAAG, ATAG, WCAG, UTR #36, CHARMOD, etc. 
Indeed, we already have a reference to CHARMOD and UNIVCHARDET. If there 
are other documents that would be helpful, I would be happy to link to 
them too. Steven, is this what you had in mind?

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 25 August 2009 05:24:07 UTC