# Talk:Alt attribute

There is another page with content similar to this article: Alt text
Alan Pascoe 22:33, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Appears to have been merged now. ([1], [2]) --DocumentN 20:23, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

The most recent change:

once again, purely decorative images outside of CSS are inappropriate, so whether or not empty alt is appropriate for them is irrelevant
Given that the use of decorative images in HTML is very widespread, it is by no means "irrelevant" to discuss what the appropriate alt attribute value is for them.  And no, CSS isn't powerful enough to replace all use of decorative images yet, so don't suggest that.
Consider this: an illustration to accompany a paragraph of text is desired.  This illustration is not required to understand the topic at hand.  The paragraph already has a background image.  The illustration must affect the line boxes so that the text remains legible and the illustration is not obscured.
This is an extremely common design pattern in web design, and it's impossible to achieve with pure CSS alone.  No, generated content is not an option, it doesn't work in Internet Explorer, and even if it did, you can't generate more than one box with it, so you are screwed if you are already using generated content for something.
I'm putting the text about decorative images back in.  It should remain in until such a time as CSS is powerful enough to generate boxes of its own accord, and even then it's not a slam-dunk.
--Bogtha

"In the sky flies a red flag with a white cross whose vertical bar is shifted toward the flagpole." 
This really bad! And I have pointed that out before.... 

Is the main subject of this picture the sky? No. Then forget it. Begin the description with "A flag....."
What sort of cross is this? A seeing person with a little general knowledge may realise that a cross might be smaller than the flag itself (like that on the flag of Switzerland) or it might be diagonal (like that on the flag of Scotland). Describe the cross. " A red flies from a flagstaff. It is red, divided vertically and horizontally by a white cross...."
For the umpteenth time, the cross is not an animate being and is not referred to as who. ".... the vertical of which is shifted ....."
Where is it shifted? Flags have a front and back, a top and bottom, a left and right. Provided the flag is depicted the correct way around, (and it is) then it is simpler to say "...to the left" than "    towards the flagpole."
That gives us: "A flag flies from a flagstaff. It is red, divided vertically and horizontally by a white cross, the vertical of which is shifted to the left." 
Could somebody change this or choose a different example. Amandajm (talk) 13:27, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there some reason you don't do this yourself? 173.56.145.119 (talk) 05:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

This reads very much like a tutorial that lacks thoroughness. Content should not be explained through examples, but rather through common terminology reinforced by examples. Nor should it be prescriptive of good HTML style (which, by the way, isn't a misconception because it's not a matter of fact; it's a matter of style).Spezied (talk) 17:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

@Aoidh: Is the Search Engine Journal reliable? I've seen it criticized in The Signpost for this article, and it doesn't seem to be na actual journal. — VORTEX3427 (Talk!) 04:38, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@Vortex3427: I think it is for this, because the specific reference cited on this article is not written by a contributor but by one of their staff members, and they themselves are in turn citing John Mueller who would be reliable for statements about how Google's search engine works. The video embedded in the reference confirms what the SEJ reference is saying so I think it's reliable in this instance in that it provides evidence for what its saying i.e., Mueller's statements. - Aoidh (talk) 08:14, 17 October 2022 (UTC)