[uf-new] img alt content (was:hAudio implemented on Bitmunk (with one snag))

[Manu Sporny]

Tantek Çelik wrote:
> This was deliberately rejected at the creation of hCard to give publishers
> more control.
> 
> All too often there is "garbage" (or just extra unwanted text) in alt
> attributes for a variety of publisher reasons.

Doesn't doing this go against the HTML 4.01 specification? You aren't
supposed to have anything in the 'alt' attribute of the image tag that
isn't pertinent:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html#h-13.8

> I've added this to the hCard FAQ as well:
> 
> http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-faq#Why_is_IMG_alt_not_being_picked_up

The above link states:

"In addition all too often there is "garbage" (or just extra unwanted
text) in alt attributes for a variety of publisher reasons, and that
extraneous text would pollute otherwise clean property values in
numerous existing sites."

I couldn't find a reference to the analysis that lead to this
conclusion? What constitutes "garbage"? What reasons would a publisher
have to do this? If they're doing this, aren't they quite blatantly
violating the HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 specification?

The link stated above also says:

"Finally, it is simpler and more predictable for publishers if they know
that for images and other such URL related elements (a, object, etc.)
that whether they are specifying a URL property (like "email", "photo",
"url", etc.) or a text property (like "fn", "nickname", etc.) in either
case directly specifying the property on the element is the way to do it."

If we were to adopt this approach, I don't see how we could ever get the
following chunk of HTML working for hAudio:

<a rel="sample" href="/samples/sneaking_sally.mp3">
   <img src="sample.png" alt="Sample Sneaking Sally" />
</a>

Sample, as defined by hAudio is:

rel-sample. optional. sample file/stream using rel-design-pattern with
                      'sample' as the mf-rel-value.

Rel-patterns are only available on links... thus the "move the URL
property such that it is specified directly" approach doesn't work for
any Microformat that uses the rel-design-pattern.

-- manu