The Solution is a HTML 5 Apathetic Doctype
The discussion has been going on for a while and for the uninitiated I’d suggest you read Roger Johansson’s lates post – Can the alt attribute be omitted without hurting accessibility? Or Molly Holzschlag’s post – Web standards situation solutions. While a lot of the HTML 5 conversation goes over my head (I’m not in the time position to follow the development of a specification too closely) there are some parts which I strongly feel need attention.
For one, it seems slightly out of focus to be making alt attributes on images optional on the case study that Flickr can’t possibly provide that – hey let’s just dumb it down to the lowest common denominator! Then I started thinking – hey why not just dumb it down a few notches more because most pages out there are invalid crap anyway we can just let anything by. How? Well I am suggesting the HTML 5 Apathetic Doctype which particularly aims to give the tick of approval to anyone who cares enough to have a meeting to object to having to care about web standards. Yes its a free pass.
With the HTML 5 Apathetic Docytype working for your organisation you can avoid having to bother to close elements – you started an unordered list and the browser should be smart enough to figure out you just finished your list items! You might want to throw in some elements of your own like the bullshit tag for when you’re quoting someone but want to add the semantic meaning that what they were saying is crap. That’s a good one – it may work its way into the specification yet.
Further, with the HTML 5 Apathetic Doctype it will mean the case study of Flickr is satisfied – they will always be valid. The tick of approval. On the up side we can claim like religions do that whole countries are Christian / standardistas (interchangeable). God is on our side here right? Web standards high quality valid code will be 100 times more common on websites within a year. It could – but this is a reach – be put at the top of a Microsoft Frontpage document (or even a Word document) and instantly make it the valid gem it deserves to be.
Now this post may sound a bit mean and it could come across as slightly thicker than a tongue in cheek commentary of where we are with the suggested demobbing of alternate text (not at all useful in many people’s eyes).
HTML 5 Apathetic t-shirts will be available at the door on your way out and we give free validation for first time DOCTYPE users. Thankyou for coming.
ps. I should clarify that you wouldn’t be able to omit the Apathetic Doctype – unfortunately it would actually be needed to validate the page. There is a workaround though. If nobody in an organisation can figure out how to put a Doctype on the page then we just make user agents treat all pages which use the bullshit tag (or a noalt which only exists in this specification) as Apathetic by default. Does that make sense?
Is there a tail wagging this horse by any chance?
September 9th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Hahaha….I have to laugh Steven, have to…not at you – but with you!
As you can see with my comments on Roger’s article – I think the HTML 5 spec is going from bad to worse…(to possibly irrelevant?)..within a short space of time. The ‘alt’ attribute and a whole bunch of other stuff in the spec are being dumbed down so much…it’s quite odd – and certainly counter to everything Web Standards has been trying hard to educate people about.
HTML 5 Apathetic Doctype…..hehehe. Would make a good t-shirt!!
September 9th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Hi Matt
We could even drop the Apathetic part – it may offend some companies – and call it the HTML 5 Transgressional Doctype for developers who want to transgress the ideas of standards entirely BUT still want to validate and a tick of approval.
I can see another major part of this is increasing market share – more people with valid pages. Its kind of frustrating.
The only real consolation is that I would be highly surprised if, in the time frame they expect HTML 5 to be in full swing, we were still using the original technologies in place today. HTML may be irrelevant by then – people invent other stuff. So its a long term stab at tomorrow with today’s world view (which I think is another flaw).
This wired article from a couple of years ago – 2005 – mentions the push to make a new internet which is phishing / spam / kiddie porn proof. The protocols could be made so they aren’t stateless and do remember the page you came from instead of only seeing pages. In reality all this is currently running on 30 year old technology and eventually a lot of things will change.
So in a way I kind of think HTML 5 shooting themselves in the foot in some rush to become the ‘famous few who saved markup’ is kind of humourous. What if Flash develops to the point it becomes a far superior platform (re: accessibility, security, ease of development and upgrade of content) over the next 5 – 10 years? I really don’t know either but that’s an example of how whatever happens in that timeframe won’t be something easily imagined right now by ordinary old us.
I think if people took on board the HTML 5 Apathetic Doctype tshirt idea and we saw them in the street more it MAY just get other non standards developers asking what’s that about? Raise awareness.
K I better study for this exam on Tuesday. Its about 2G / 3G / 4G technologies and some of the science and infrastructure behind it (don’t tell anyone but its nauseating to review the slides)…
September 9th, 2007 at 5:54 am
sorry here’s the link to the wired article
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2005/06/68004
September 9th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Good luck with the exams mate! (I won’t tell anyone about the slides! hehe)
Cheers for the link – I’ll take a look. I get what you mean about the ‘..long term stab at tomorrow with today’s world view’ – so true!!
September 9th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Thanks – its only a smallish mid semester exam…
Its apparent that accessibility to a number of the people in this conversation isn’t an issue in the first place. I still vote for the bullshit tag – or would that be a bullshit attribute for blockquote?
Cheers mate