Re: Null change proposal for ISSUE-31

This change proposal contains objections to the other two change 
proposals, and such will prove helpful at later stages in the resolution 
of this issue.

With respect to the objection to Steve's proposal, the following 
rationale for the current text: 'We need to try having such information 
as "in your face" as possible. Having additional documents would be 
additionally helpful, but does not preclude having detailed advice in 
the HTML spec itself.' does not justify the specific exact text present.

With respect to the objection to Laura's change proposal, this objection 
does not address each way in which Laura's change proposal differs from 
the current text.

In all, this change proposal needs to be updated in order to provide 
rationale for the current text before it can be considered.

- Sam Ruby

On 03/24/2010 02:56 AM, Ian Hickson wrote:
>
> ISSUE-31
> ========
>
> SUMMARY
> There is no problem and the proposed remedy is to change nothing.
>
> RATIONALE
> There is no problem.
>
> Another change proposal suggests removing all advice for authors writing
> alternative text, moving it to other documents. Historically, we have
> tried that (HTML4 had virtually no advice) and we have found it to be a
> poor solution: authors assume it is easy to write alternative text and
> thus do not attempt to learn anything about it. We need to try having such
> information as "in your face" as possible. Having additional documents
> would be additionally helpful, but does not preclude having detailed
> advice in the HTML spec itself.
>
> A second change proposal suggests allowing otherwise non-conforming
> content to be conforming based on the presence of ARIA attributes.
> However, this is a layering violation and a language design error. ARIA is
> intended to only affect accessibility API mappings (and thus ATs).
> Features such as alt="", however, are relevant far beyond AT users, for
> example to text browsers. It would be wrong, therefore, to make solutions
> that exclusively affect accessibility APIs be a suitable alternative for
> solutions that are necessary for UAs that do not use accessibility APIs.
>
> DETAILS
> Change nothing.
>
> IMPACT
>
> POSITIVE EFFECTS
> Having authoring advice will help advise authors.
> Having conformance requirements independent of AT APIs will ensure that
> authors are encouraged to write documents that are optimal even for users
> that do not use ATs.
>
> NEGATIVE EFFECTS
> None.
>
> CONFORMANCE CLASS CHANGES
> None.
>
> RISKS
> None.
>

Received on Wednesday, 23 June 2010 10:19:42 UTC