- From: Leif Halvard Silli <lhs@malform.no>
- Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 02:35:16 +0200
- To: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- CC: Steven Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>, wai-xtech@w3.org
Ian Hickson 08-04-12 22.00: Steven Faulkner: > > I propose it is removed. > > So say that my partner e-mails me personally an e-mail that contains a > diagram of our new apartment's floor layout. > > What possible benefit is there to making that e-mail non-conforming? > (There's no way that my partner will describe the image textually, I > assure you.) > There is a possible benefit in having authors know that there is just one standard, if and when they want - or need - to conform. However, it is also necessary to operate, interim, with HTML which is not ready to take or demand the validation test. In this regard, I proposed [1] - as an replacement for the current "WYSIWYG made" stamp - a new "unready" stamp, which all authors - couples, and blind - and all editing tools - could use, when they need to offer HTML which they consider technically unready. (Becuase of the relativity of what e.g. a good 'alt' is, the author/editor judgement always matter.) When one sets the "unready" flag, it will never formally validate, even if there are no formal errors. If you don't include the 'unready' flag, then readers should assume that the author think it is techically ready. This way, we would find a room, in the validation process, for the necessary approvement of the author. And thus, **perhaps**, it would also be possible for the validation tool to give a formal answer about whether it is technically valid or not, (instead of telling the author that it is valid, only provided you have also considered alt, summary, longdesc etc.) Because, if the author has approved it, and there were no errors, then why should it give a conditional validation? There seemed to be agreement, a while back, that the WYSIWYG stamp (re)introduces some kind of unwanted versioning in HTML. But one cannot, during editing - including passing of e-mail - avoid the unreadyness step. The benefit of 'unready' is that it raises the consciousness about html authoring as as an "algorithmic", process of several taskes that should be looked after before submitting it to the final validation. For instance, Boris [2] said something which I think is valid even for hand authoring authors: > So if the alt text is being auto-generated via image analysis, it > makes sense to do it with the most advanced image analysis software. > All else being equal, this probably means doing it as late as possible > in calendar time. There is perhaps nothing that automatically, by guarantee, spits out guaranteed valid HTML. And thus, if the author haven't even considered whether it is valid, then why should he atomatically stamp it as valid? The unready flag serves to inform caring readers that the author care about making it technically ready, but that he might not be ready with readying it yet. It also act as a help in the authoring process: For instance, if all images in a document or collection of pages, were inserted automatically, the unready stamp could serve as a flag for all the images: Instead of simply starting to ask the author about each and every image, the program can instead ask, if the program has the unready flag, if the author wants, at this moment, to start to go through the process of adding alternative text. When there is no unready flag, the application should stop bothering the author with such questions. If we insert this flag as a META element, then the element could have several keywords to mark, for the author, which parts of the authoring process he/she have considered. I see now that this could be made quite advanced: On could keep a flag inside each IMG element (in class= ?) as a flag for whether the alt text has been considered, so that the program doesn't e.g. ask about alt="" over and over, if it has been considered. An effect of this would be - I suppose - that we would get many high quality documents which are marked as 'unready', due to selfcritical/slow authors. And many lesser quality documents without such a mark, made by less critical/lazy authors and bad quality automated tools. And this would be, I think welcome, as it - together with the requiered author approval that this build in,, would make us more critical to what the valdi stame actually means. It would also create more room for necessary critical evaluation by humans, instead of blindly relying on it. Also note, that this is just about technical quality. Allthough, alt text is also a content issue. I chose the word "unready" to seperate it from "drafts". A draft can be technicallly ready, even if it is just a draft. [1] http://www.w3.org/mid/47D596E6.1010901@malform.no [2] http://www.w3.org/mid/47FFB96B.3040303@mit.edu -- leif halvard silli
Received on Sunday, 13 April 2008 13:20:33 UTC