Re: Fwd: NetMechanic Results on www.hwg.org

The note should come from Len, and it should be an invitation to join in
the ER IG where knotty issues such as what to do in a checker with
un-implemented markup are being thrashed out as we speak.

Al

At 09:03 PM 9/2/99 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
>I ran a test on http://www.hwg.org/ at http://www.netmechanic.com/
>today.
>
>They told me that I'd "misspelled" a lot of words, like XML and
>XHTML, plus they kindly informed me that <!DOCTYPE> is not a valid
>HTML tag.
>
>The thing that scares the heck out of the accessibility instructor
>within me is rating of our "browser compatability".  The things it
>identifies as "incompatible" all fall into one of the two 
>categories:
>
>(a) Style sheet support, such as SPAN elements or CLASS/ID
>     attributes, which specifically degrade gracefully when CSS
>     is not present, and
>(b) Attributes/elements added for accessibility's sake, such
>     as IMG LONGDESC, HTML LANG, ABBR, or LABEL.
>
>Now, I don't mind being identified as "incompatible" with old
>versions of browsers, but the PROBLEM here is their "advice" to
>web designers:
>
>"Try to avoid using a tag or attribute if it is incompatible with
>more than 10% of your audience."
>
>THIS IS SO UTTERLY WRONG.
>
>Here's what they say for LONGDESC:
>
>Tag:                IMG
>Attribute:          LONGDESC
>Lines:              78
>Visitors Affected:  99.00%
>Microsoft:
>   3:                N
>   4:                N
>   5:                N
>Netscape:
>   2:                N
>   3:                N
>   4:                N
>
>In other words, since 99% of browsers out there don't use the
>information, you shouldn't include LONGDESC.
>
>In short:
>
>      Their advice is actively ANTI-ACCESSIBLE.
>
>Would someone care to join me in writing to these people about the
>inherent problems in advising against the use of proper HTML code
>as they are doing here?  It might mean more if we all got together.
>
>This could also be an issue for the evaluation/repairs tools to
>look at, but I don't know what exactly you'd want to do.
>
>PS:  The url below expires in 2 days.
>
>--Kynn
>
>>Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 22:59:18 -0400
>>To: kynn@kynn.com
>>Subject: NetMechanic Results
>>From: webmaster@netmechanic.com
>>
>>[ad snipped]
>>
>>NetMechanic has completed the tests you requested for:
>>
>>http://www.hwg.org/
>>Job Configuration: One Page, Local Links, Remote Links, Images, HTML
Standard: HTML Version 4.0 Standard
>>
>>You can find your results at:
>>
>>http://beta.netmechanic2.com/summary.cgi?f=244225225-06389s=NetMechanic&fv=2
>>
>>Reports will be stored at this URL for the next 2 days.
>>
>>
>>
>
>-- 
>Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                   http://www.kynn.com/
>Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
>Catch the Web Accessibility Meme!                   http://aware.hwg.org/
>

Received on Friday, 3 September 1999 08:21:42 UTC