- From: Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>
- Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:45:11 -0400
- To: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- CC: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>, HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>, Chris Wilson <Chris.Wilson@microsoft.com>, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>, Catherine Roy <ecrire@catherine-roy.net>, Gez Lemon <gez.lemon@gmail.com>, Leif Halvard Silli <lhs@malform.no>, Philip TAYLOR <p.taylor@rhul.ac.uk>, Robert J Burns <rob@robburns.com>, Roger Johansson <roger@456bereastreet.com>, W3C WAI-XTECH <wai-xtech@w3.org>
Ian Hickson wrote: > On Wed, 24 Jun 2009, Laura Carlson wrote: >>> Is that what you mean by collaboration? >> I mean real debate. > > I presume, from your e-mail, that you do not consider this to be debate: > > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jun/0173.html > > Could you elaborate on why? I believe that the following: > * We need summary for backward compatibility. HTML5 supports implementing the summary="" attribute for backwards compatibility as currently written. ... is an example of what Laura describes as "selectively choosing those points in a subject which happen to favor a position, while ignoring the rest". Another, more recent, example is "The browser vendors are the ultimate gatekeepers, of course". - - - The topic at hand is making a summary attribute conforming, where the attribute is not displayed by browsers to users with no visual or cognitive disabilities, but is available to assistive technologies. Having read quite a bit of "debate" on the subject, I believe that the statement that "We need summary for backwards compatibility" is more than a bit of an overstatement. I don't believe that the following supports that statement: http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/SummaryForTABLE#head-222af24a2b1dcdc3afe5e3036551b70f99cf232c Item 23 in that list comes closest, but explicitly talks about a replacement, from which I infer that "something better" has more weight than "backwards compatibility" in this case. Item 20 in that list is even more compelling, though I would suggest change the first word from "Reinstating" to "Including" to avoid triggering yet another unnecessary discussion on "yanking". [tangents: I see no value in #19: at best it reiterates, at worst it distracts; #22 seems to be not only missing a word or two, it doesn't seem to belong in this list; finally, I'm also unclear why #10 is an item in the list in the *next* section: perhaps applicable design principles should be a section of its own?] - - - If there could be agreement on "something better" that agreement would have the effect of reducing the period for which a summary attribute would need to be conforming, perhaps even down to the span useful life of HTML 4, something that is likely to outlive us all. If we are talking about plain text which should not routinely be displayed to users with no visual or cognitive disabilities, making it an attribute (vs an element) would require the least change by browser vendors. Renaming the attribute shouldn't be done simply because the current attribute has been misused; if there are other reasons to rename the attribute that would be fine, but it would make sense to understand and address the reasons why the current attribute has been misused. If we are talking about an attribute, it need not be on the table element. Perhaps an attribute whose name starts with "aria-" and ends with something that suggests "holistic overview" and is placed on the caption element would have less problems, but that's a subject of language design. I am not as familiar with ARIA as I should be, but my understanding is that there currently isn't an attribute defined by ARIA which meets this need. Even this approach doesn't address all of the issues in the following list: http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/SummaryForTABLE#head-2046cf917919f6d17e0ee7990238686702c17523 In particular, bullets #3, #4, and #9. - Sam Ruby
Received on Wednesday, 24 June 2009 10:46:01 UTC