edits to the draft should reflect the consensus of the WG

On Aug 15, 2007, at 10:43 PM, Lachlan Hunt wrote:

>> [ snip - about Gregory's photo album]
>> http://my.opera.com/oedipus/albums
>
> That photo album is a perfect example of extremely poorly generated  
> alt text.  All of the images contain the alt text: "perception -  
> photography - image interpretation - blindness".  Although it's  
> margially better than an empty alt attribute because it gives some  
> indication of there being an image, it seems to be worse than no  
> alt attribute, especially since it says nothing at all useful about  
> the images and is needlessly repeated on every one.  That's the use  
> case the draft is trying to address by making alt optional in some  
> cases.
>
>> 4. i have a question for you: is it "needless hyperbole" or  
>> just    an "urgent re-statement" of ideas,
>
> No, it was needless hyperbole.  There's no need to write a long  
> rant, fighting for accessibility every time something is added to  
> the draft which wasn't as well written or thought out as intended.   
> If you just attribute a little bit of good faith to Hixie's  
> intention, and calmly point where the spec can be improved, the  
> discussion and outcome will be much more productive.

I think the point you're missing here Lachlan is that the editor is  
supposed to make edits to the draft that reflect the consensus of the  
WG. That's not what's happening Instead these edits to do not at all  
reflect consensus of the WG: they reflect the views of just the editor.

There have been several discussion on the list serve about this topic  
with other alternative (and far superior) solutions proposed. Some of  
that discussion is reflected in the wiki (though probably not enough  
of it). In any event, the proposed solution of requiring @lat be  
omitted in certain cases is completely wrong-headed.  As it reads no,  
it sends the message to an author that they must not provide  
alternative equivalent text for meaningful images. There are so many  
other solution s that could have addressed this situation in a not- 
broken-at-inception sort of way (how about a new attribute with  
keywords indicating the different scenarios).

Instead of approaching the WG or even reading the list serve and  
reading the wiki in a good faith manner and  trying to understand  
what other members are saying, there's instead a pride in  
misunderstanding. Others views are repeatedly dismissed with flippant  
remarks.

This is just one example. As another example, Instead of discussing  
the @usemap issue with the group, the editor also just made sweeping  
decisions about the feature. No consensus was ever reached. The  
editor didn't even bother to try to understand the feature before  
deciding it should be changed. Time was spent conducting research  
that completely misunderstands the feature.

All of this is counter-productive and its not how a WG should conduct  
business.

Take care,
Rob

Received on Thursday, 16 August 2007 04:07:25 UTC