RE: ISSUE-66 image-analysis: informal consensus check

Sam Ruby wrote:
>
>
> Just a passing observation: if there isn't consensus, the next step is
> to look for which proposals have would attract the weakest objections.
> Knowledge of which proposals each of you might support is no where near
> as useful as knowing which proposals you would actively object to,
> which
> in turn is no where near as useful as knowing the basis for such
> objections.
>
> An occasional +1 here or there is fine, but seeing three such inputs is
> what caused me to send this note.  I encourage each of you (and all of
> the members of the working group for that matter) to identify which
> proposals you see as actively harmful (and to say why) and/or to focus
> on suggestions in the form of concrete changes to existing proposals
> which would result in something you would no longer object to.

Hello Sam,

The responses to date have been "informal" - as the subject line had 
indicated. I am now reading your request as that for something more formal, 
which is cool, but also changes the request significantly.

This issue item has generated a significant amount of discussion in the 
past, discussion that I for one was an active participant in. I will not at 
this time revisit any of that discussion, but will happily do so if 
requested.

Based upon those discussions however, and in response to your specific 
question *I* will object to any ALT text repair 'technique' in the 
Specification that *does not* directly involve the content author, as only 
that author knows why an image is inserted into the page. This includes 
techniques such as OCR, Crowd-Sourcing, meta-data mining or the rolling of 
chicken bones - all being equally effective in determining author intent.

Specific to Maciej's original question (and your follow-up), this means I 
will actively oppose options:

 * Change Proposal: There is no problem and the proposed remedy is to change 
nothing.
     http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Mar/0194.html

 * Change Proposal: Include more detail about possible image repair 
techniques.
     http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Mar/0195.html

As the first Change Proposal states:
 "Removing the text[1] will not prevent UAs from implementing such a system, 
but will protect the importance of @alt from being undermined."
     http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/ImageHeuristics

([1] Text by-the-way being *1 sentence*: "User agents may also apply image 
analysis heuristics to help the user make sense of the image when the user 
is unable to make direct use of the image, e.g. due to a visual disability 
or because they are using a text terminal with no graphics capabilities.")

Sincerely,

JF

Received on Friday, 30 April 2010 15:37:00 UTC