Re: Seeking *opinions* as part of a larger research issue.

Totally agree with everything here, but even with the WayBack Machine you could still copy a text only version of the URL and use that, so it doesn’t have to be a live link.

Thanks
Charles
EOM

From: Lisa Snider <lisa@accesschangeseverything.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 17, 2023 at 11:45 AM
To: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>, public-epub3@w3.org <public-epub3@w3.org>, public-publishingcg@w3.org <public-publishingcg@w3.org>, epub-higher-education@lists.daisy.org <epub-higher-education@lists.daisy.org>
Subject: Re: Seeking *opinions* as part of a larger research issue.
I have not worked with example links, but I have worked with clients who had dead links.

I have worked with publishers, who keep the dead links and put in text at the end of them, something like ‘Inactive’. Others keep the links as is, as that was the original way it was done (similar to print).

It is hard, because the author referenced certain things. Unless they do another edition, we end up with dead links. We don’t go back into a thesis produced in 2006 and change the links, even if thousands of people download it. Are e-books different? Should they be different? One could argue either way on that one.

In my view, dead links are problematic for many people. I agree with what you wrote below.

One thing I thought of as a solution was to use the Internet Archive Wayback link, if they picked up the URL. That way, one could update the exact same link (or close) that the author used.

Cheers

Lisa

Lisa Snider
Senior Digital Accessibility Consultant and Trainer
Access Changes Everything Inc.
Web: www.accesschangeseverything.com<http://www.accesschangeseverything.com/>
Nova Scotia Phone: (902) 717-5704
Manitoba Phone: (204) 430-5180
North American Toll-Free Phone: (800) 208-1936

From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>
Date: Monday, January 16, 2023 at 2:10 PM
To: <public-epub3@w3.org>, <public-publishingcg@w3.org>, <epub-higher-education@lists.daisy.org>
Subject: Seeking *opinions* as part of a larger research issue.
Resent-From: <public-publishingcg@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2023 18:10:21 +0000

The use-cases are pretty simple:
1) an ePub book has text content on the page that is a URL (i.e. it quite literally reads "www.examplesite.com<http://www.examplesite.com>"). The URL does not (and is not expected to) actually resolve anywhere, it's just an example or placeholder text.
2) an ePub book has content on the page that was once an active hyperlink, but the link no longer exists.

The question is: for both of those use-cases (where the "print" is offering up a text string formatted as an URL, but there is no actual URL to resolve to), should those text strings STILL be marked up as hyperlinks?

From a strict conformance to WCAG perspective… well, WCAG is silent on this specific topic (and so it seems is ePub Accessibility 1.1).
I strongly suspect that there are arguments for both sides of the discussion (“should all printed URL’s be active links”?), but I am currently backing the perspective that having users (readers) follow inactive links (or presenting users with inactive links to follow),
a) potentially places negative cognitive strain and confusion on some users,
b) potentially demands unnecessary interactions (clicking a useless link) that could be problematic for mobility impaired users, and
c) delivers zero quality for any effort invested by the user.

My questions are:
1) do you agree or disagree with my reasoning? (If you disagree, might I ask for your counter-argument please?)

2) have you encountered this before? If you have, can you tell me what you ended up doing? In particular, if you work in EDU (office of accommodation, etc.) where ePub remediation is part of your work/tasks, do you have a 'standard' policy or solution to either of these use cases?

3) any other thoughts or comments? (Note: we're looking for a solution that is also scalable, FWIW)

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

JF
--
John Foliot |
Senior Industry Specialist, Digital Accessibility |
W3C Accessibility Standards Contributor |
"I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." - Pascal "links go places, buttons do things"