Re: "valid [X]HTML x.x!" icons are Evil (was Re: Thanks a lot)

On Thu, 20 Dec 2001, James Ralston wrote:

> On Mon, 17 Dec 2001, Nick Kew wrote:
> > Isn't the purpose of the icon to propagate the notion that
> > validation, or more generally standards-compliance, is a Good Thing?
>
> Yes, and it's a noble goal, but asking web authors to propagate that
> notion by *explicitly advertising their pages as being valid* is a
> horrible injustice, when the W3C darn well *knows* that a future
> change of theirs might invalidate countless of pages with the "valid
> [X]HTML x.x!" icons on them.

That kind-of implies a rather high degree of self-awareness on the
part of W3C, which I suspect (though I am of course open to correction)
comes only in the wake of this months discussion.

> I'd really like to see someone from the W3C comment on my original
> "'valid [X]HTML x.x!' icons are Evil" post.  (Perhaps it's being
> discussed, but from my point of view, all I hear is crickets
> chirping...)

Maybe you should try #validator on IRC, which is the other forum for
this.  The trouble with official pronouncements is that they do require
rather more preparation than a post by you or me.

Would you still say the badges were a bad thing, if they were accompanied
by a service that would email you a report listing invalid pages on your
site, with links to the tools to fix it?  This is not a hypothetical
question: it's an element of the Site Valet QA programme.

-- 
Nick Kew

Site Valet - the mark of Quality on the Web.
<URL:http://valet.webthing.com/>

Received on Thursday, 20 December 2001 15:20:02 UTC