Re: img@relaxed CP [was: CfC: Close ISSUE-206: meta-generator by Amicable Resolution]

Michael(tm) Smith (mike@w3.org) writes:
> Edward O'Connor <eoconnor@apple.com>, 2012-07-31 15:13 -0700:
> 
> >          http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/User:Eoconnor/ISSUE-206
> > 
> Some specific parts of the CP that lead me to express support for it:
> 
> 1. I agree with the statement in the CP which asserts that the general use
> case this CP is attempting to address is an important use case to address.
> The use case is valid, and I think we should all work together to try to
> find out a way to address it that we can all agree on. This CP seems to me
> to be the most viable CP for this issue so far that we actually have a
> chance of getting agreement on.


Well, perhaps not. PF does not accept this use case as valid, neither
did the WAI Ad Hoc that provided guidance on alt three years ago, nor
has the TF agreed this use case is valid.

Quoting from Ted's CP:

"The spec currently allows conformance checkers to waive alt=""
conformance requirements on pages with <meta name=generator> present.
This feature is intended to allow sites like Flickr (which accept bulk
photo uploads from their users and can't reasonably require their users
to provide alternative text) to check the conformance of their Web
applications without being inundated with warnings or errors that the
site developers can't do anything about. If we don't allow such sites to
do this, they have and will add bogus alt="" text to their pages simply
to pass in popular conformance checkers, thus harming the accessibility
of their pages."

This paragraph contains three false assertions:

1.)	The 2009 guidance document from the WAI Ad Hoc provided a solution that
that site developers could adopt which would satisfy alt concerns when
individual authors failed to provide individualized alt text.
http://www.w3.org/2009/06/Text-Alternatives-in-HTML5.html

The assertion that large site developers are hapless victims is false.
Repeating this false assertion will not make it true.

2.)	It is asserted that developers would fill alt with bogus text.
But, no evidence has yet been provided in support of this claim. This
assertion is also false, and repeating it will also not make it true.

3.)	If bogus text were inserted, it is asserted this would cause
harm to a11y? But, what harm? This has never been demonstrated and is,
in fact, also a false assertion whose repetition will not make it true.

This use case is a bogus, red herring.

Janina





from 
> 
> 2. The observations in this CP about the need for "granular relaxation" for
> this use case are particularly important and need to be considered; I
> believe in particular the following statement makes an important point:
> 
>   "The markup of large Web applications is typically partly generated from
>   code and partly sourced from hand-authored HTML templates. With an
>   all-or-nothing mechanism, there's no way to relax the conformance
>   criteria for only the portions of the document corresponding to
>   user-generated content, while retaining strict requirements on the
>   portions of markup from the hand-authored HTML templates.
> 
> This CP addresses that particular use case. The meta@name=generator
> exception currently in the spec does not.
> 
> 3. Related to #2, I agree with the following assertion about the positive
> effects of this proposed change:
> 
>   "We enable engineers of large Web applications to catch markup errors that
>   they can do something about, without bothering them about markup errors
>   they can't do anything about."
> 
> That's something which is of real-world concern to validator developers.
> When users attempt to validate documents and end up getting a large amount
> of error messages about potential problems which they have no means to
> correct directly themselves, we risk having them just give up and quit
> using the validator altogether. This is of very practical concern for
> anybody maintaining a validator: You want users to keep using your validator
> and to have the validator match their real-world needs as much as possible.
> 
> Anyway, in summary and as I mentioned in #1, I think this CP provides a
> resolution that we have a good chance of getting agreement on among the
> people in the group who so far have been unable to reach agreement on it.
> So I hope everybody involved can consider it very carefully, with an open
> mind.  It's not a perfect solution for the problem. We're not going to find
> a perfect solution. But this is the best solution I've seen so far.
> 
>   --Mike
> 
> -- 
> Michael[tm] Smith http://people.w3.org/mike

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

The Linux Foundation
Chair, Open Accessibility:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Received on Wednesday, 1 August 2012 01:36:55 UTC