[WEB4LIB] RE: HTML Referring?

[Raymond Wood]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2002 at 07:31:19AM -0700, Dan Lester remarked:
> Thursday, October 24, 2002, 7:58:17 AM, you wrote:
> TD> At 09:43 AM 10/24/2002, Dan Lester wrote:
> 
> >>TD> If all of your site navigation is included with client-side scripting,
> >>what
> >>TD> message do you give users with client-side scripting disabled?
> >>
> >>      No argument with Thomas's point.  But I'm curious if anyone has
> >>      any sort of figures on how many "regular folks" turn off client
> >>      side scripting, or surf with images turned off.  I know some of
> >>      the list members do, but I don't consider list members to be a
> >>      representative sample of "real users".
> 
> TD> With a heaping spoonful of caveats about the quality of the sample, 
> TD> thecounter.com shows 10% of hits with no JavaScript in September 2002: 
> TD> <http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2002/September/javas.php>.  By comparison, 
> TD> they show Netscape 4 at 2%, and we still have people falling over 
> TD> themselves to accomodate NS4.
> 
> Interesting data, and a timely reminder of a site I'd forgotten about.
> I'm one who is not worried about NS users.  We specifically state that
> we support IE only, although our sites work in NS, with the exception
> of some licensed databases that have problems with NS or Notes
> browsers.  Of course I can't do anything about that.  But if a user
> calls with a problem, the first question is "what browser are you
> using" and if it is a non-IE response, we request that s/he open up IE
> and see if the problem still exists.
> 
> Yes, I know this behavior is anathema to some of you.  But, it works
> for us, and we've yet to have a complaint about it from a user.
> 
> dan

Dictating to users what browser they shall use completely goes
against the original open/egalitarian intent of the web.  This
kind of general policy is just plain wrong on principle.  (I
feel I am stating the obvious here BTW).

How is someone using GNU/Linux supposed to access this
information?  There is no IE for them to use. (Answer: they will
just have to hope that Navigator 4.x, or Mozilla, or one of the
other browsers works).

Just because you have received no complaints does not mean that
no one has ever been inconvenienced by the poor design.  But
that is not the real point anyway.  

The point is the WWW was intended to be about freedom and
choice, not monopoly vendor-lockin.  Browser-specific web design
such as that you so blithely announce attempts to restrict this
freedom for the sake of the web designer's convenience.  Rather
obviously, a better alternative is to design your web pages
according to generally accepted W3C web standards (like HTML
4.01 Transitional, or XHTML for example).  Then there is no need
to dictate (dictation is for dictators?) to users what browser
they 'should' be using (a highly presumptuous position anyway).
Rather users can make up their own minds -- a much better
situation for those who value freedom and the ability to
*choose*.

My $0.02,
Raymond