What have they done!?

[El Kabong]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Neredbojias


Not necessarily ... think about advertising on radio. They are not so
much
describing the product, as pitching it. Same thing would be true here.
<img src="people_enjoying_themselves.png" alt="Buy some widget and your
life will be better, too!" width="width" height="height">

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

You might also try thinking of alt text as an opportunity for SEO.
Appropriate use of keywords or description meta -tags in the alt attribute
can do wonders for search relevance.

El

 

[Bergamot]

You might also try thinking of alt text as an opportunity for SEO.
Appropriate use of keywords or description meta -tags in the alt attribute
can do wonders for search relevance.

Sounds like spamming, especially if you're using inappropriate alt text
for a given image.

BTW, do you know for certain that alt text has any effect on SEO? AIUI,
most search engines don't index alt text. Some do only if the image is a
link.

 

[El Kabong]

Sounds like spamming, especially if you're using inappropriate alt text
for a given image.

BTW, do you know for certain that alt text has any effect on SEO? AIUI,
most search engines don't index alt text. Some do only if the image is a
link.

Not "spamming" if the alt text is appropriate to the image. (Guess I'm still
baffled as to why anyone would think it to their gain to have their "used
car" site come up in a search for, oh, say "mini-blinds." )

It would be far from inappropriate for a resort's Web site to have the
keyword "waterskiing" in the meta tags, a picture of someone waterskiing
named "waterskiing.jpg", and the alt text "Enjoy waterskiing during your
stay!" That's not spamming, it's common sense, and if the search engine
doesn't index the site with the word "waterskiing", it has a faulty
algorithm and would eventually be avoided by users after turning up goofy
results during search's... as happened with Google for a time. (I once did a
search for "Wisconsin Motorcycle Events" and an Iron Man competition in
California came up number one. Number two was a fireman's Web site in
Arkansas. Thank goodness they've fixed that.)

Relevance in content is never spamming.

Do the search engines index alt text? Don't know for sure, but it's my
belief they do, if only for the sake of accessability by visually
handicapped, which obviuosly is another consideration.

Regardless, it shouldn't harm your ranking to include *relevant* strings in
the "img" tag.

El

 

[Neredbojias]

alt="Some product, $9.99 from MyMart"

Sure, that is a great alt text. I can even somewhat agree with the
argument that it "should be" included. But ought _all_ images be
_required_ to have alt text? Uh uh.

 

[Neredbojias]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Neredbojias


Not necessarily ... think about advertising on radio. They are not so
much describing the product, as pitching it. Same thing would be true
here. <img src="people_enjoying_themselves.png" alt="Buy some widget
and your life will be better, too!" width="width" height="height">

Well, the phrase "ad pic" _is_ a description, albeit a terse one.
Nevertheless, I don't necessarily disagree with you regarding the "pitch"
concept. My point, however, is that alt text for _all_ images is
ludicrous.

I have a site with a page containing 20 or so thumbnail images of van Gogh
paintings. If the images cannot be seen (by a particular user), what is
the purpose of providing alt text? Sure, one could contrive an obscure
situation to conjure some meaningful connection (-such as the visitor has
images turned off for speed but wants to see if anything he desires is
available...) but if that really is supposed to be part of the providence
of alt text, I am definitely an earnest dissenter.

In my opinion, alt text should have a common default which should probably
be nothing more than it's non-inclusion. There is enough parasitic crap
obfuscating the fundamental simplicity of web pages as it is. Why add
more?

 

[Bergamot]

It would be far from inappropriate for a resort's Web site to have the
keyword "waterskiing" in the meta tags, a picture of someone waterskiing
named "waterskiing.jpg", and the alt text "Enjoy waterskiing during your
stay!" That's not spamming,

No, that looks like appropriate alt text for that particular image. BTW,
you didn't mention which meta tag in particular you were referring to.
Search engines don't use "meta keywords" any more. Some do show any
defined "meta description" in search results pages, but that text isn't
indexed.

 

[El Kabong]

No, that looks like appropriate alt text for that particular image. BTW,
you didn't mention which meta tag in particular you were referring to.
Search engines don't use "meta keywords" any more. Some do show any
defined "meta description" in search results pages, but that text isn't
indexed.

Well, you know what? These search engine people seem to be deliberately
trying to confuse us hillbilly coders.

For instance, here's what I usually drop in on my pages, but always on the
index page:

<META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="ALL,FOLLOW,INDEX">
<META NAME="Revisit-After" CONTENT="30 Days">
<META NAME="Distribution" CONTENT="Global">
<TITLE></TITLE> [max length: 12 words]
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT=""> [max length: 25 words]
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT=""> [max length: 10 words or phrases]
<META NAME="Title" CONTENT=" "> [same as <TITLE> above]
<META NAME="Copyright" CONTENT="©">
<META NAME="Subject" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="Language" CONTENT="English">
<META NAME="Designer" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="Publisher" CONTENT="">

Now I have no idea whether any of these has any effect at all on the search
engines (some are mysteriously redundant) but I usually get fair results, as
long as I copy and paste strings of characters from the page content into
the appropriate tags. Probably the only three tags that ever did have any
potency were Title, Description and Keywords, but I wouldn't want to bet
anybody anything that any of them still do or don't.

But, like I said, as long as I seem to get results, I'll keep on cluttering
up my header with this kind of trivia.

And looking confused.

El

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Neredbojias:

My point, however, is that alt text for _all_ images is ludicrous.

I wonder if you would think that way if you personally needed alt texts.
Suppose, for example, that you were forced to use a browser with the setting
"do not automatically load images" and you could load images individually
but at the cost of $1 per kilobyte.

I have a site with a page containing 20 or so thumbnail images of van
Gogh paintings. If the images cannot be seen (by a particular user),
what is the purpose of providing alt text?

"Cannot be seen" is just one of the scenarios. Besides, even if you cannot
see an image, you might be able to experience them using a tactile mouse. Or
maybe you are a search engine that cannot see anything but is collecting
information about images; you might use the title attribute value, if
present, or you might try to determine the association of the image with
text around it, but the _simplest_ thing to start with is the alt attribute.

Sure, one could contrive
an obscure situation to conjure some meaningful connection (-such as
the visitor has images turned off for speed but wants to see if
anything he desires is available...)

There's nothing contrived or obscure about it. The word "obscure" applies to
an image gallery with no texts about the images. You might have captions
below images, but their association with the images is less obvious,
especially in some techniques of caption implementation. (There is no HTML
element for image captioning, so anything the authors does is a trick of a
kind.) Besides, if you have captions, it's a trivial operation to duplicate
them in alt attributes, if you don't bother doing something more advanced.

In my opinion, alt text should have a common default which should
probably be nothing more than it's non-inclusion.

Setting alt="" as the default would help no one; it would actually make
things worse. A large crowd of clueless or sloppy authors would omit alt
attributes no matter whether the image actually needs a nonempty alt text.
People do such foolishness even in a manner that requires some work from
them: they write alt="" (perhaps to silence validators or accessibility
checkers) for all images, including images that contain just text so that
writing the right alt text would be extremely trivial.

At present, when many browsers distinguish between alt="" and lack of any
alt text, users can at least know that authors didn't bother writing any alt
text, i.e. that the page contains an image that could be just about
anything. If alt="" were the declared default, browsers would probably act
accordingly and treat the billions of existing images without alt attributes
as if the author can explicitly said that the adequate textual replacement
for the image is the alt text.

The attitude that you express (and present in favor of defining a default
for alt attributes) is one of the key reasons why it would be a bad move to
define a default of alt="".

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit El Kabong:

Well, you know what? These search engine people seem to be
deliberately trying to confuse us hillbilly coders.

Yes, they are, for very good reasons.

For instance, here's what I usually drop in on my pages, but always
on the index page:

If the stuff would matter on an index page, it would matter far more on
content pages.

<META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="ALL,FOLLOW,INDEX">

With content="all", that's the default. I wouldn't be so sure that the
incantation you have there is actually recognized by all indexing robots.
Thus, you have no odds of making any positive difference but a small chance
of messing things up.

<META NAME="Revisit-After" CONTENT="30 Days">

You wish. If that accomplishes anything, it makes a robot visit less often
than it would do otherwise.

<META NAME="Distribution" CONTENT="Global">

Try <meta name="impact" content="conquer the world">. Neither pseudomagic
tag has any effect, but if there were an effect, the latter would be much
cooler!

<TITLE></TITLE> [max length: 12 words]

So you _only_ put a title element on your index page, or what? And you have
an artificial length restriction on it? The _useful_ limitation is in terms
of characters, but the simple rule is: as long as needed to describe the
content of the particular page in any context, but not a character longer.

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT=""> [max length: 25 words]
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT=""> [max length: 10 words or phrases]

Pointless babble. These widely abused tags are widely ignored, for good
reasons. Robots that still pay attention to them probably give them the same
weight as normal text, so you would do much more productive work by
concentrating in improving the actual textual content.

<META NAME="Title" CONTENT=" "> [same as <TITLE> above]

Pointless. You just increase the size of the HTML file.

<META NAME="Copyright" CONTENT="©">

That's really clueless, isn't it?

<META NAME="Subject" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="Language" CONTENT="English">
<META NAME="Designer" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="Publisher" CONTENT="">

Pointless. You could keep inventing META tags forever, or copying them from
obscure sources. This would hurt just yourself, but promoting the idea of
META babble in public means that you are actively trying to convert others
to this dummy magic.

Now I have no idea whether any of these has any effect at all

I do believe that.

I usually get fair results,

You didn't actually compare the results between pages that lack the META
nonsense and pages that have it, to varying extent? Right, I knew that.

And looking confused.

The point is that you are confusing others, especially newbies.

 

[El Kabong]

Pointless babble.

That's OK, Yucky, your mama loves you.

 

[nice.guy.nige]

While the city slept, asdf ([email protected]) feverishly typed...

[...]

dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

*plonk*, *plonk*, *plonk*, *plonk*

Cheers,
Nige

 

[Neredbojias]

Scripsit Neredbojias:


I wonder if you would think that way if you personally needed alt
texts. Suppose, for example, that you were forced to use a browser
with the setting "do not automatically load images" and you could load
images individually but at the cost of $1 per kilobyte.


"Cannot be seen" is just one of the scenarios. Besides, even if you
cannot see an image, you might be able to experience them using a
tactile mouse. Or maybe you are a search engine that cannot see
anything but is collecting information about images; you might use the
title attribute value, if present, or you might try to determine the
association of the image with text around it, but the _simplest_ thing
to start with is the alt attribute.


There's nothing contrived or obscure about it. The word "obscure"
applies to an image gallery with no texts about the images. You might
have captions below images, but their association with the images is
less obvious, especially in some techniques of caption implementation.
(There is no HTML element for image captioning, so anything the
authors does is a trick of a kind.) Besides, if you have captions,
it's a trivial operation to duplicate them in alt attributes, if you
don't bother doing something more advanced.


Setting alt="" as the default would help no one; it would actually
make things worse. A large crowd of clueless or sloppy authors would
omit alt attributes no matter whether the image actually needs a
nonempty alt text. People do such foolishness even in a manner that
requires some work from them: they write alt="" (perhaps to silence
validators or accessibility checkers) for all images, including images
that contain just text so that writing the right alt text would be
extremely trivial.

At present, when many browsers distinguish between alt="" and lack of
any alt text, users can at least know that authors didn't bother
writing any alt text, i.e. that the page contains an image that could
be just about anything. If alt="" were the declared default, browsers
would probably act accordingly and treat the billions of existing
images without alt attributes as if the author can explicitly said
that the adequate textual replacement for the image is the alt text.

The attitude that you express (and present in favor of defining a
default for alt attributes) is one of the key reasons why it would be
a bad move to define a default of alt="".

This argument boils down to nothing more than a least-common-denominator
approach in more ways than one. Alt ext is baggage which in many cases
is unnecessary, and my proposed default is not alt="" but its elimination
entirely. Sure there are times when it is important and desirable, but
stating that a large percentage of web authors currently choose to ignore
this fact does little to persuade me of its value in modern superfluous
contexts.

Some video media has close-captions, some doesn't. While this isn't an
analogy, it does show that an option exists and is utilized with minimal
criticism.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Neredbojias:
When I see a screenful of quotation, as in your message(s), I suspect I'll
see an AOL one-liner like "Me too!" or "Bullshit!". Don't you think it's
time for you to learn how to quote on Usenet? (Hint: Google for "how do I
quote on Usenet".)

This argument

Which argument? You quoted my entire message, so which of the arguments are
you commenting on?

boils down to nothing more than a
least-common-denominator approach in more ways than one.

Pseudo-mathematical expressions like "least-common-denominator" don't help,
and this particular phrase, used in some vague derogative manner, is often a
sign of cluelessness.

Alt ext is
baggage which in many cases is unnecessary, and my proposed default
is not alt="" but its elimination entirely.

Defaulting means omission. By making an attribute optional and by not
declaring any default value you would just leave the question about document
presentation wide open. If a document contains an <img> element, how should
it be rendered when the image is not available or won't be displayed for
some other reason? You can't avoid the problem by not saying anything about
it in the specifications.

Sure there are times
when it is important and desirable,

And saying something about an image's textual alternative is unimportant and
undesirable exactly when?

but stating that a large
percentage of web authors currently choose to ignore this fact does
little to persuade me of its value in modern superfluous contexts.

Your statement looks like it has been generated by a babble generator: it
constitutes grammatically a sentence but does not make sense.

Some video media has close-captions, some doesn't. While this isn't
an analogy, it does show that an option exists and is utilized with
minimal criticism.

No, it shows nothing about this matter. I wonder whether you have understood
_why_ the alt attribute is used. There's more in it than meets the eye; see
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/alt.html

 

[Neredbojias]

Which argument? You quoted my entire message, so which of the
arguments are you commenting on?

I was commenting on your entire argument as a whole. While it may have
been multifaceted, it had a common (-if erroneous) theme.

Pseudo-mathematical expressions like "least-common-denominator" don't
help, and this particular phrase, used in some vague derogative
manner, is often a sign of cluelessness.

Isn't that opinion just a little subjective?

Defaulting means omission. By making an attribute optional and by not
declaring any default value you would just leave the question about
document presentation wide open. If a document contains an <img>
element, how should it be rendered when the image is not available or
won't be displayed for some other reason? You can't avoid the problem
by not saying anything about it in the specifications.

Defaulting doesn't mean omission. It means having something which is
used or understood when an alternative in not specifically stated.

Browsers render unavailable images in different ways. IE tends to use a
small square, Mozilla just blank nothingness on the graphics side. As
for alt text, who knows?, its use is very unpopular.

And saying something about an image's textual alternative is
unimportant and undesirable exactly when?

When a textual representation of the image would serve no real useful
purpose. Of course, that is the essence of this argument to begin with.

Your statement looks like it has been generated by a babble generator:
it constitutes grammatically a sentence but does not make sense.

Okay, to be a bit more earthy, I actually feel that the shoe is quite
significantly on the other foot.

No, it shows nothing about this matter. I wonder whether you have
understood _why_ the alt attribute is used. There's more in it than
meets the eye; see http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/alt.html

You're right, I probably don't know all the reasons for using the alt
attribute and will avail myself of the link anon. But I do know one
overpowering reason for not using it and have stated same previously.

 

[Bergamot]

Browsers render unavailable images in different ways.
As for alt text, who knows?, its use is very unpopular.

I think it is more misunderstood than unpopular.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Browsers render unavailable images in different ways. IE tends to use a
small square, Mozilla just blank nothingness on the graphics side. As
for alt text, who knows?, its use is very unpopular.

Mozilla gives you no indication that an image was supposed to be there
unless there is an ALT value. If the images are style to display block
then it will act as a BR, and will be really odd looking if you have
dimensions set for the image! Requiring the ALT parameter is a good idea
IMO regardless of current practice, where it does make sense is with the
infamous spacer.gif but the flaw in that practice is obvious!

 

[Joel Shepherd]

I think it is more misunderstood than unpopular.

And in any event, popularity historically has had little to do with
correctness.

 

[Neredbojias]

Requiring the ALT parameter is a good
idea IMO regardless of current practice

You'd make a good Republican.

 

[Neredbojias]

I think it is more misunderstood than unpopular.

You could be right, but I suggest it is the _requirement_ that is
unpopular, at least in a non-necessary context.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

You'd make a good Republican.

???

Did your use a Bush algorithm to come to that conclusion?