What does "writing email to a friend does not make an img missing alt conformant" mean?

[edent]

Under Changes to Existing Features - https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/PR-html51-20170803/changes.html#changes-to-existing-features

Having title, or writing email to a friend does not make an img missing alt conformant.

I think the first part means "Even if an img has a title, it still needs an alt".

I don't understand what writing an email - to a friend or otherwise - means in this context.

[LJWatson]

It seems to be an editorial mistake in the changelog. I've skimmed through 4.7.5 The img element, but can't find anything that suggests anything likely.

Ping @chaals (who wrote the changelog) and @stevefaulkner (who most likely made the spec change), but to satisfy curiosity only. HTML5.1 2nd Edition is in PR now, so we're not even able to make editorial changes at this point unfortunately.

[Alohci]

Compare with the WHATWG living spec. It says

4.8.4.4.13 An image in an e-mail or private document intended for a specific person who is known to be able to view images

When an image is included in a private communication (such as an HTML e-mail) aimed at a specific person who is known to be able to view images, the alt attribute may be omitted. However, even in such cases authors are strongly urged to include alternative text (as appropriate according to the kind of image involved, as described in the above entries), so that the e-mail is still usable should the user use a mail client that does not support images, or should the document be forwarded on to other users whose abilities might not include easily seeing images.

Presumably at some point, this was in the W3C Spec too. Then later, this point was removed (non-conformance is simpler than conformant-but-don't-do-it) and the change note reflects that.

But it doesn't appear in HTML 5.0 Rec, so the description as changed since 5.0, is a bit misleading.

[LJWatson]

Thanks for the archeology @Alohci.

[edent]

Link: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/dev/images.html#an-image-in-an-e-mail-or-private-document-intended-for-a-specific-person-who-is-known-to-be-able-to-view-images

Is it worth keeping in, considering the potential for confusion?

[LJWatson]

Setting aside consistency for the moment, I don't think the advice in the WHATWG spec is particularly helpful. It states that the alt can be omitted if the recipient of the email is known to be sighted, but then acknowledges two situations in which that fact cannot be known by the sender.

[johnfoliot]

+1 to Leonie. It strikes me as a justification for simply being lazy, with ill-formed justifications at best. Our specs, while often referenced by legislations (example: WCAG), do not have the force of any legal weight as W3C specifications, so it is additionally unclear why anyone would specifically outline that corner/edge use-case to then create an exception. Whether or not you provide a textual alternative in an email (or, rather, whether you meet or do not meet that requirement), is, at the end of the day, your conscious decision, with little practical impact (outside of the potential of impacting others downstream if and when that particular email is forwarded or otherwise shared). With billions of non-conformant web pages out there today, this truly seems to be a trivial question in the grand scheme of things. That said, I would however object to perpetuating that language in a W3C specification such as HTML5.x, as being both wrong-minded and contradictory to other W3C specifications (specifically WCAG 2.0). I personally believe harmonization with other W3C specs is more important than harmonization of the WHAT WG working draft... errr "Living Specification". JF

…

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 3:07 PM, Léonie Watson ***@***.***> wrote: Setting aside consistency for the moment, I don't think the advice in the WHATWG spec is particularly helpful. It states that the alt can be omitted if the recipient of the email is known to be sighted, but then acknowledges two situations in which that fact cannot be known by the sender. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#989 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABK-c_Djk2QyTaoqhPPmQNzI9Jn6OLmWks5sWhGIgaJpZM4Ox7jJ> .

-- John Foliot Principal Accessibility Strategist Deque Systems Inc. john.foliot@deque.com Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion

[LJWatson]

Closing this because it doesn't seem helpful to introduce this text to the HTML spec.