Proposed changes in warning handling in the CSS validator

Dear all,

As a follow-up to the (many!) discussions which took place here about  
the warnings in the CSS validator, here's a summary of the current  
situation, and a proposed improvement.

Currently:
* the CSS validator has two "levels" of warnings, high and low priority
* options can be set to show no warning, only high priority, normal  
report or all warnings
   (which is inconsistent with having only two levels of warnings...
   and that really puzzles me. Maybe the original developers will know.)
* by default, the validator shows all warnings
* ... I don't really know what the rationale is behind the  
classification of warnings into high or low priority

Proposed:
* keep the two levels of warnings
* keep the option to choose the amount of warnings, but only have the  
choices to
   - show no warning
   - show only high level warnings
   - show all warnings
* by default, show only "high priority" warnings. Those who care can  
ask for more. (the validator should give a hint that there were low  
priority warnings if they are turned off)
* split the warnings using the following rule of thumb:
   - warnings related to CSS syntax, deprecated values, etc => high  
priority
   - warnings related to accessibility, good practices => low priority
  ( attached is the proposed splitting amongst existing warnings )
* in the works (but for later) are new, more intelligent checks about  
colour clashes


One of the consequences of that is that the (rather unpopular)  
accessibility-related warnings on color and background color will not  
be present when running with the "default" validation parameters. I  
gave it a long thought, and although the "no-color" warnings are well- 
intentioned, they are imperfect, almost out of scope, and alienating  
more people than they are helping. I am convinced that showing them  
only to those who want to do a thorough check is the way to go.

Comments, suggestions, disagreement welcome. As usual, please keep  
the discussion constructive and polite.

Thanks,
olivier
-- 
olivier Thereaux - W3C - http://www.w3.org/People/olivier/
W3C Open Source Software: http://www.w3.org/Status