Tony Sidaway wrote:
Chad Perrin said:
The statement that "we" already have this capability built into "our" browsers assumes some things about visitors to the site that are not necessarily true.
Well you had to dig pretty deep for a not-very-convincing example. :)
That wasn't "digging pretty deep": it was speaking from experience. I've had occasion to use w3mmee, even as my primary browser under certain circumstances (now thankfully behind me). The point still stands, though -- some people don't have the options you seemed to assume were universal.
Besides, anything less than a one-click method of blocking all images is unlikely to make blocking all images palatable to anyone using a graphical browser. As such, I think that addressing the matter from the server side is rather important, in the long run.
I agree that, at most, it's a nice-to-have. But really the users should be taking this issue up with the designers of their browsers, not the producers of content. http is not a push medium.
I both agree and disagree with that. I agree that users should be taking it up with the browser designers, rather than the content providers, but I also believe that, in absence of specific reasons to do otherwise, content providers should perhaps address the matter as well. In particular, I think it's an idea that should be addressed by Wikipedia, because of the goals pursued by the Wikipedia endeavor (both in theory and in practice). Making a universally accessible encycolpedia implies making an encyclopedia that strives to be as close to universally palatable as is practicable, as well, without betraying the needs of encyclopedic quality.
-- Chad