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Re: Investigating the proposedaltattributerecommendationsin HTML 5

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Aug 30, 2007 11:40AM

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007, Karl Groves wrote:

> I really don't think it matters whether the alt attribute is required or
> not.

Making it not required would be a strong signal.

> Truth is, incomplete/ inaccurate/ deceptive alt text is just as bad as
> none at all.

Sometimes worse. That doesn't mean that omitting an alt attribute would
ever be acceptable. There has been too much talk about using alt
attributes as compared with emphasizing how they should be written, but
the solution of making them not required is just crazy.

Even _considering_ the issue is a sure symptom of the "HTML 5" activity
being on the wrong track. The whole "project" really puzzles me.

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