place-holding characters in edit/text boxes

Hi,

I'm interested in people's experience/opinion re checkpoint 10.4

   'Until user agents handle empty controls correctly,
   include default, place-holding characters in edit
   boxes and text areas."

Is this still an issue for any screen readers (assuming the label element 
is used)?

PS:  I know this same issue was discussed a couple of years ago (mid 2001) 
and from memory the concensus then was that place holder characters were 
needed.  However I haven't seen a recent post on this topic (sorry if I 
missed it) and from my own experience people who are blind often find this 
confusing (I guess because it is not common practice).  Also people with 
physical disabilities have difficulties because they need to delete the 
text before entering the required information, which is not always easy.

Thanks,
Sandra.


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