Re: Could RSS revolutionize accessibility?

> A RSS feed is 100% accessible viewed in the right viewer. Then at least we
> have an accessible interface for all people to the core value of many web
> sites. The documents served are the same, but at least we have a good
> beginning, or what?

The insertion of encoded HTML into RSS feeds (allowed in 0.92 and 2.0, also done
with 1.0 even though 1.0 doesn't allow it [1.0 does has mechanisms to allow
tranmission of HTML more safely]) brings with it a large number of potential
problems. One of these problems is that it allows every Bad Thing that can be
done with HTML to be done with RSS, bringing all manner of accessibility
issues.

Even without this I don't thing RSS will solve many accessibility problems, it
is ill-suited for the delivery of much of the content on the web. As great as
RSS is I think it's more a case of yet another thing we have to make sure we
get right than any sort of panacea.

-- 
Jon Hanna
<http://www.hackcraft.net/>
"…it has been truly said that hackers have even more words for
equipment failures than Yiddish has for obnoxious people." - jargon.txt

Received on Tuesday, 16 March 2004 05:59:37 UTC