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Re: help with a form please

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Mar 17, 2007 11:50PM

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007, Geoff Munn wrote:

> Ok, I didn't make any assertion that it was an accessibility issue, I
> just referred to any 'accessibility guidelines' that the original
> author may be required to comply with.

That's quite an explanation, isn't it?

> If the requirement for height
> and width attributes is present in such guidelines, then maybe the
> guidelines are mis-named, but that doesn't make me wrong.
> Here's an example:
> http://www.e.govt.nz/standards/web-guidelines/web-guidelines-v-2-1/
> chapter6.html

It's named "New Zealand Government Web Guidelines v2.1", and it does not
present the requirement to use width and height attributes as an
accessibility guideline at all.

> Well you may be right,

What I stated about "placeholders" is expert consensus.

> but people are still required in some cases to
> comply with the old WAI priorities.

Are they? Why do you refer to such a rule without even saying it's wrong,
when a) most web authors are _not_ required by anyone to comply with WAI
rules, b) those who are can easily find items that allow exceptions in
special cases and utilize them, and c) they can and should violate the
rules as required by accessibility when the rules are all wrong, though we
can probably allow exceptions to this if the author is in real danger of
getting prosecuted and killed for such violations, for example.

(My point is that most of the "accessibility guidelines" are just babble
and exercises in producing impressive-looking documents, to be violated in
practice even by their authors and even in the documents themselves. Few
people are forced to follow them, or even pressed hard. This is sad
because much of them is actually good advice, but this surely implies that
we need to follow the bad advice and tell our fellow authors to do so.)

> Not 'completely wrong' actually,

Well, each of the statements you made was wrong. How much more wrong can
you be?

> - - the practicalities of what some
> people are required to do.

Many web authors are required to do stupid things that are hostile to
accessibility and to disabled people. That's no excuse for misrepresenting
some rules and imaginary rules the way you did.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/