- From: Shadi Abou-Zahra <shadi@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:15:44 +0200
- To: ERT WG <public-wai-ert@w3.org>
Hi, As far as I know, WCAG 2.0 does not differentiate between acronyms, abbreviations, initialism, or whatever. From a functional perspective they all share the same user need: they need to be clarified on their first occurrence. IMO, this is splitting hairs. Can we live with leaving the use of <acronym> versus <abbr> to the editor of the respective document? The initial mail of this thread intended to provide guidance on how frequently to expand and markup these terms. Best, Shadi Christophe Strobbe wrote: > Hi Johannes, > > At 11:35 17/06/2009, Johannes Koch wrote: >> Shadi Abou-Zahra schrieb: >>> Dear group, >>> During the previous teleconference call we agreed on an approach for >>> using <acronym> elements in our documents. >> >> BTW, which definition of acronym do we share? Some people insist on >> acronyms to be pronouncable words, like RADAR. With this definition, >> XML and RDF would not be acronyms, while EARL would be one. AIRC, the >> fuzzy "definition" of acronym in the HTML specs lead to dropping it >> for XHTML2 and HTML5. > > Based on the dictionaries and other reference works I consulted a few > years ago > (<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2005JulSep/att-0851/AbbreviationAcronym.html>) > I don't think there is a shared understanding of the term "acronym". > Some say they that acronyms can be pronounced as a word, some don't say > anything about pronunciation. If you say that acronyms need to be > pronounced as a word, you need to add another term, e.g. initialism, for > the ones that can't be pronounced as a word. > > Best regards, > > Christophe > > >>> #3. Do not markup acronyms where it is already expanded. For example: >>> "Evaluation and Report Language (<acronym title="Evaluation and >>> Report Language">EARL</acronym>)..." is redundant and unnecessary. >> >> Should we do not markup them, or should we not expand them? EARL is >> still an acronym and _could_ still be marked like this: >> <acronym>EARL</acronym>. However there may be no use for AT, while >> there may be other uses. >> >> -- >> Johannes Koch >> Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT >> Web Compliance Center >> Schloss Birlinghoven, D-53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany >> Phone: +49-2241-142628 Fax: +49-2241-142065 > -- Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/ | WAI International Program Office Activity Lead | W3C Evaluation & Repair Tools Working Group Chair |
Received on Wednesday, 17 June 2009 10:46:56 UTC