RE: Semantics [was: Re: Well-formed (was: Re: F2F Proposed Resolutions Draft Updates)]

>> OK, so let me understand this: The Working Group is contemplating
>> issuing a vague and counterfactual guideline based on one person's
>> blog posting,
>
> There was not based on a Blog posting.

The sole source used for the vague and counterfactual guideline was one 
person's Web page. So OK, let's not call it a blog. Now try to disprove my 
point.

> We don't use semantic because it is used to mean both document semantics and
> verbal semantics.

That isn't a problem, though Gregg seems to think i tis.

>  Even the list of experts that you queried and posted to the maillist 
> say that both uses are legitimate.

Please go back and reread the submissions. In the context of Web 
development and markup, there was *no* dissension in understanding the 
sense of "semantics." SOME OTHER SENSE OF THE WORD DOESN'T MATTER. The Web 
Accessibility Initiative uses polysemous terms all the time.

Keep fighting this and you're going to become a laughingstock among the 
group of developers most committed to following WCAG. In fact, that's 
already happening.

> To avoid confusion we have tried to avoid using document semantics - 
> that is true.

It still uses the term "semantics," meaning it doesn't actually solve the 
claimed problem, meaning the claimed problem was false, incorrect, or a 
smokescreen.

> All of the words removed or rejected were proposed by other members and 
> many words of the chairs have been not accepted.

Yeah, except those words were figments of the imagination, like "cascading 
dictionary." I'm talking about a term in widespread use for the last four 
years that the Working Group is on some kind of crusade to discredit.

> Everyone has a hard time finding the right words.

(a) speak for yourself abd (b) that isn't what we're talking about, but as 
usual Gregg tries to recast the argument in ways he prefers.

Let's switch to all-caps again: EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE BUSINESS USES THE 
TERM "SEMANTICS." It's an embarrassment that the WCAG Working Group is 
even arguing about it. This is not a question of "finding the right 
words"; the right words have been long found and used. What some of you 
are having a hard time with is accepting outside reality. And that makes 
you look foolish.

The rest of Gregg's post was another restatement of "In fact, the Working 
Group is ruthlessly fair to everyone, and could you please be a bit nicer, 
Joe?"-- the former of which is untrue and the latter of which is 
off-topic.

-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
       --This.
       --What's wrong with top-posting?

Received on Sunday, 19 June 2005 15:24:32 UTC