Re: Validity

Hi Roberto,


Christophe Strobbe wrote:
<blockquote>
Isn't this an element of "practical reality" that can be used as an
argument against requiring valid code at level 1? How does using <embed>
harm accessibility? Should WCAG ban content just because it uses a certain
technology or because the content (in spite of accessibility features of
the technology) is inaccessible?
</blockquote>

At 12:09 4/11/2005, Roberto Scano (IWA/HWG) replied:
<blockquote>
So should wcag authorize dtd violation? Should this be a precedent of a 
Vendor choice that require to modify web standards for support proprietary 
elements?
</blockquote>

No, I don't want a precedent for the introduction of proprietary elements. 
The previous draft guarded against the introduction of random elements or 
attributes [1]. I could live with that L1 SC (possibly without the clause 
"for backward compatibility").


Christophe Strobbe wrote:
<blockquote>
Based on what you write above, it is not "Microsoft instead of Macromedia"
but "Microsoft and Macromedia" because the former company is responsible
for MSAA.
</blockquote>

At 12:09 4/11/2005, Roberto Scano (IWA/HWG) replied:
Yes this is true, like the choice of MM to use embed. So u would like 
validity at level 2 or 3 so all the "soup" can be used?
</blockquote>

I find level 3 too low for validity, and people have mentioned practical 
reasons for not requiring it at level 1.
However, I object to the implication that this discussion is about validity 
versus all kinds of "tag soup". It never was, but some people on this list 
use this simplistic dichotomy to push their point of view on others; they 
say: "Tag soup is bad, so it's stupid not to require 100% conformance to 
the specification." They ignore examples of invalid code that does not 
cause accessibility problems. They ignore the existence of other L1 success 
criteria that work against certain types of "tag soup" (GL 1.3 L1 SC1: 
"Structures within the content can be programmatically determined", GL 2.4 
L1 SC1: "Navigational features can be programmatically identified"). They 
ignore arguments and questions that question their own point of view. When 
reason turns into bigotry, I withdraw from the discussion.

Regards,

Christophe Strobbe


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-WCAG20-20041119/#use-spec


-- 
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Departement of Electrical Engineering - Research Group on 
Document Architectures
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Received on Friday, 4 November 2005 11:59:48 UTC