RE: What does "for example" mean

I would suggest the other interpretation - that "for example" means "one way
that this can be achieved is". That is the assumption under which I read the
WCAG drafts as a member of the group. Whether the example is in fact the best
or only way is not reaqlly relevant - I expect people will keep using it for
the real world, and the idea was that the examples are useful. But  they are
not necessarily the only or even best way.

I agree that focussing on what things are actually required is  agood thing
in any event.

my 2 bits.

Charles

On Thu, 8 Mar 2001, Leonard R. Kasday wrote:

  I agree with william that the main thing is to make sure people understand
  there are choices and explain the choices.

    I suggest we change the wording from

  quote
  For example, in HTML, use the "summary" attribute of the TABLE element.
  unquote

  to something like

  quote
  For example, in HTML, one way is to use "summary" attribute of the TABLE
  element.
  unquote

  Or any other wording that makes it explicit that "summary" is not required.

  Also, as part of this erratum, I think we should say that things following
  "for example" are always required unless the guidelines explicitly say
  otherwise.  I think that covers most or all of the uses of "for
  example".  We then put in a few words where we didn't want it to always
  required.

  It this leads to arguments about whether things are required or not, well,
  that has to be settled for WCAG 2.0 anyway, so that work isn't wasted.

  I think we have to be really clear here.  Adherence to WCAG is being
  written into actual contracts, so we should remove ambiguity as much as we
  can, even if it's clear to us what we mean.

  Len


  At 07:49 AM 3/6/01 -0800, William Loughborough wrote:
  >At 09:21 AM 3/6/01 -0500, Bailey, Bruce wrote:
  >>Documents like the WCAG _are_ going to be taken literally, and if this is
  >>not the intent, then the authors should write more carefully
  >
  >Apparently "literally" and "carefully" are, as Al tried to point out, a
  >bit more complex than they seem.
  >
  >What stuff "means" is often in the mind of the reader a quite different
  >matter than it was for the author. Does "all men are created equal"
  >deliberately exclude women? Are people with otherly-colored skin "men"?, etc.
  >
  >No matter how careful we are there will be different readings of our
  >product, but if we can avoid being too testy with one another we will find
  >a way to make future clarifications more likely.
  >
  >Whatever "erratum" we issue re WCAG 1.0's treatment of SUMMARY won't
  >matter much if we make clear that summarizing is encouraged (in the
  >checkpoints) and how to do it includes (in the techniques) some hierarchy
  >among TITLE, CAPTION, NAME, SUMMARY, ALT, LONGDESC - in other words "get
  >appropriate", whatever that means in a particular instance.
  >--
  >Love.
  >                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE
  >

  --
  Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
  Institute on Disabilities/UAP and Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Temple
  University
  (215) 204-2247 (voice)                 (800) 750-7428 (TTY)
  http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday         mailto:kasday@acm.org

  Chair, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Evaluation and Repair Tools Group
  http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/

  The WAVE web page accessibility evaluation assistant:
  http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/


-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI    fax: +1 617 258 5999
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
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Received on Thursday, 8 March 2001 11:24:24 UTC