Alexey Feldgendler wrote: > This sounds reasonable. I guess I should change my statement: > > The alt attrubute should be made optional, and when it's omitted, the UA > should try to obtain some useful information from the file name or by > other means.
I'm not sure I agree. If you look at what you might use <img> for, it's almost always presentational, and could therefore be done with CSS. The more semantic the image, the more necessary alternate content becomes, thus making the |alt| attribute necessary for a truly semantic <img> element. If you find yourself using <img alt=""> a lot, it's probably because you're not making proper use of CSS, or because you're using <img> elements to achieve a presentational effect that is currently not possible with just CSS 2.1 (yet may likely be possible in CSS 3).
