On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 1:38 PM, Aryeh Gregor <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Marco Schuster > <[email protected]> wrote: >> So what? > > I'm not sure how to respond to this. Is our goal to make a > high-quality encyclopedia for everyone, or only for people who don't > use IE6? Do those people count less for some reason? Should we > ignore people who use text terminals or screen readers too, because > they're a (much smaller) minority who are (much more) annoying to > support? > > Where it's better for our overall user base to not support IE6, then > we should do that. And we do, in plenty of ways. But that's clearly > not the case here. Transparent math images would provide zero benefit > to virtually all non-IE6 users, so there's no possible justification > for significantly degrading display for IE6 users. The cost-benefit > analysis is crystal-clear. > >> Sometimes this is necessary though. Many people today still don't know that >> IE6 is dangerous. Wikipedia should warn those users and tell them how to >> upgrade. > > If anyone has managed to successfully avoid upgrading to IE7 or 8 > despite all of Microsoft's campaigning and attempts at auto-update, > then it's very likely that they know exactly what they're doing and > have made an informed decision to stick with IE6. We are in no > position to second-guess that. > > In practice, rumor suggests that the large majority of IE6 > installations are on corporate sites, where IT is unwilling to spend > the money testing and deploying a major change when things work well > enough already. IE7 breaks a lot of sites that were coded to work > only in IE6, particularly corporate intranet sites that ignored > compatibility because they knew everyone would only run IE6 (since IT > required it). > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >
The last point is key. Every so often (this list, elsewhere) I see people suggesting that IE6 support needs to be dropped, and users told to upgrade. The problem is that the vast majority of people who are still on IE6 are in situations where they cannot upgrade--exactly the scenario Aryeh outlined. I know with my current employer, financial services with approximately 31k employees, IE6 is still considered the company browser standard. Working in local government before that, the same situation applied. IE6 continues to have a market share, as much as it sucks. And as long as we're trying to be accessible to as many people as possible, we cannot ignore a 15% browsing audience. Now, if people want to start plastering their sites with "Optimized for Firefox and Chrome" banners, lets break out the "Under Construction" pages too, since we'll be visiting websites reminiscent of the dot-com boom. -Chad _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
