- From: Shelley Powers <shelley.just@gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:06:02 -0500
- To: HTMLWG WG <public-html@w3.org>
Before the teleconference this week, since @summary is the top agenda item, one of the issues associated with @summary is the fact that the HTML 5 sole author, Ian Hickson, based his decision on pulling @summary (or I should say, collapsing it into caption) on data queries he made against Google's index. Though CSSquirrel addressed this issue humorously(1), several of us have expressed concern about decisions being made on proprietary data, especially since the use of proprietary data is counter to independent verification (2). I've been lectured on how HTML5 is derived from the use of scientific methodology(3), yet independent verification of data is an underlying component of true scientific research. Other data sources have also been queried, and the results have been used to challenge @alt, @longdesc, @summary, and other accessibility attributes. Focusing specifically on @summary, data queried from a couple of different sources, neither of which is all encompassing, shows that the @summary attribute is used incorrectly a significant number of times (4). This is then used as some kind of empirical proof that the @summary attribute should be pulled. Yet the same data also demonstrates that HTML tables are, themselves, used incorrectly. However, a decision wasn't made to eliminate HTML tables. Instead, text was added to the HTML 5 specification to clarify how HTML tables are used, in order to hopefully increase the accuracy of HTML table use. One then has to ask, why this same practice wasn't applied to @summary? Why wasn't clarifying text added to HTML5 in order to facilitate more accurate use of @summary. That's the problem with this process, and this practice: it is applied inconsistently, and used more to justify personal opinion than as a basis for a "best practice". The problem is compounded because the data is waved, like a flag of victory, in the faces of people who express concerns, or attempt to interject other opinions. More importantly, it is used to override those who are a), chartered by the W3C to specifically deal with the issues, and b) to undercut those with experience and expertise in accessibility. In fact, such experts are typically treated either with thinly veiled disdain, or out and out derision, if not directly in these lists, passively, and indirectly, in the WhatWG IRC(6). I don't understand the WhatWG disdain for people with years of experience and specialized training. Hubris comes to mind. Regardless, when moving forward on the topic of @summary, and the issue of "data" is brought up again, I hope that people keep in mind that the use of "data" as justification for decisions in HTML5 has not been without challenge, or controversy. A reference to "data" should not be used to end the discussions, nor should the reference to "data", by itself, continue to be sole justification for overriding other's concerns. Shelley (1) http://www.cssquirrel.com/2009/06/22/comic-update-who-really-is-the-wizard-of-html5/ (2) http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jun/0204.html (3) http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090604 (4) http://philip.html5.org/data/table-summary-values-dotbot.html (5) http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2009Jun/0026.html (6) http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090623
Received on Tuesday, 23 June 2009 15:17:18 UTC