Re: alt and authoring practices

replace not describe.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Singer" <singer@apple.com>
To: "Anne van Kesteren" <annevk@opera.com>; "Steven Faulkner" 
<faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
Cc: "James Graham" <jg307@cam.ac.uk>; <public-html@w3.org>; 
<wai-xtech@w3.org>; <wai-liaison@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: alt and authoring practices



At 13:29  +0200 16/04/08, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:23:06 +0200, Steven Faulkner
><faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
>>I don't quite follow the logic, but that is probably due to my
>>incapacity to understand, but I am pretty sure you are making a
>>worthwhile point and will cogitate on it further.
>>
>>>With nobody having data of usage on the Web the position of the
>>>editor seems more reasonable to me.
>>
>>And that is your prerogative as a member of the working group, I
>>myself do not place faith in the editor as being all seeing and all
>>knowing in the absence of data.
>
>If my reasoning is correct the position of the editor is supported
>by logic which is why his point seems more correct to me. Not
>because he's the editor.
>
>(You assume a minority case is likely to occur more often and the
>editor assumes a majority case is likely to occur more often.)

I do wonder if we are trying to pack too much into one attribute.
Really, this is brainstorming and may be a bad idea, but are we
trying to pack "what is the alt string" and "how trustworthy is the
alt string" into the same attribute, when it can't be done?  the rest
is somewhat in jest...

maybe we need a second attribute alt-trust-level:

0   the string is empty or may as well be, or missing:  it's worthless
5   the string contains facts even a stupid program could work out
from the image itself (e.g. width and height)
10 the string contains facts that were deduced automatically with
some effort from the image itself
15 the string contains automatically collected ancillary data not
found in the image (e.g. time of capture, camera)
20 the string contains human-entered data of a basic descriptive nature
25 the string contains a rather detailed description of the image
30 the string contains an analysis of the meaning of the picture as
well as its description
100 the string is a doctoral thesis, analyzing the image from every
possible direction, including references to mythological, symbolical
and historical references, history of the place/people shown,
analysis of their health, state of mind, an aesthetic analysis of the
composition, an analysis of the technical competence, and so on

i'm guessing some people here think everyone should achieve level 20.  :-)

by the way, can one provide alt strings in multiple languages and/or
scripts?  what would happen if someone tried level 100?
-- 
David Singer
Apple/QuickTime

Received on Wednesday, 16 April 2008 17:00:23 UTC