Specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/
Multipage: http://www.whatwg.org/C#top
Complete: http://www.whatwg.org/c#top

Comment:
Could you please add the following "guideline" to the description of how to
properly use alternative text as a way to naturally represent the page both
with and without images. I think that it would clarify what you are trying to
say in several of the examples. It would definitively correct the practice of
many webmasters who programmatically repeat a paragraph of information
verbatim both inside and outside of the alt attribute--which is a practice
that would make no sense if the information were being read over the phone,
and is extremely irritating, both for someone listening and for someone
reading (or hand-copying the HTML). It would make people think harder to
include REAL alternative text instead of a worthless repetition of words.

"In general, information outside of an image, or in other descriptive
attributes of the image, should NOT be repeated within the image's alternative
text."

--or even better--

"In general, information already contained outside of the image(s) of the web
page, or in other descriptive image attributes, should NOT be repeated within
the alt attribute(s) of the image(s)."


This would make best sense perhaps, if added at the location after the
sentence, 'So, in general, alternative text can be written by considering what
one would have written had one not been able to include the image.'

Of course, one need not repeat the words "in general" in both sentences, since
that would make the astute observer snicker at the resulting hypocrisy.


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