Since even the most skeptical and cynical critics of Internet Explorer admit of its dominance and to some degree of its influence on the web. My question is relevant to the latter. By even the most conservative estimates, over 70% of the web users are exploring using IE, which implements certain content enhancing technologies not found in other browsers. The most prominent example of this would be the use of filter property in CSS, which is implemented by IE 5.5+ only, at this time any way. Media player integration would be another technology that can deliver EXCLUSIVE content to IE users. Let’s not discuss the security issues here, which are completely irrelevant to my question. As any one can deduce a clear disdain of IE amongst the editorial ranks at ODP, after reading numerous messages here at RZ, will ODP editors penalize a website delivering substantially enhanced content to IE users and not the others? (Keep in mind that IE users make up the majority of DMOZ users directly or indirectly).
ODP and IE
- Thread starter riz
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jimnoble
DMOZ Meta
No it won't be penalised for requiring IE.
An editor who can't evaluate it because it requires proprietary browser features should leave it in the unreviewed pool to wait for somebody running IE to come along.
<motsa was faster yet again. I'm gonna go do something else
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An editor who can't evaluate it because it requires proprietary browser features should leave it in the unreviewed pool to wait for somebody running IE to come along.
<motsa was faster yet again. I'm gonna go do something else
>
You should be very careful to put a "sane surfers drop dead -- only hacked systems welcome here" notice, so surfers will know it's your choice to exclude them, not just another disfunctional site. (Otherwise editors might delete the site, thinking otherwise. That's not a penalty for using IE, that's a accidental penalty for not giving the sane surfers enough information.)
andysands
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I use the 'open in IE' context menu extension when I need to review a site that doesn't work properly in Firefox.
If it works fine in IE, but not in Firefox then I will tend to append [May not work in some browsers] to the end of the description - so that surfers will know why the site isn't displaying on their system properly.
I don't have any particular disdain for the latest (fully patched) version of IE*, I tend to have disdain for commercial web designers who don't try and make their content accessible to as many surfers as possible.
Not understanding HTML and accessibility standards is perfectly acceptable and excusable for amateur web designers producing personal sites in their spare time. But hardly acceptable for a professional web developer selling his or her services to companies and organisations. Plenty of websites out there seem to manage to deliver excellent content/design - including audio streams, and work in all browsers. So what is the point in making a site that doesn't? It seems counterproductive - assuming you build a site to attract the most possible visitors anyway.
*I have plenty of disdain for pre-SP2 totally insecure versions that were wont to allow any and all spyware to merrily install itself.
If it works fine in IE, but not in Firefox then I will tend to append [May not work in some browsers] to the end of the description - so that surfers will know why the site isn't displaying on their system properly.
I don't have any particular disdain for the latest (fully patched) version of IE*, I tend to have disdain for commercial web designers who don't try and make their content accessible to as many surfers as possible.
Not understanding HTML and accessibility standards is perfectly acceptable and excusable for amateur web designers producing personal sites in their spare time. But hardly acceptable for a professional web developer selling his or her services to companies and organisations. Plenty of websites out there seem to manage to deliver excellent content/design - including audio streams, and work in all browsers. So what is the point in making a site that doesn't? It seems counterproductive - assuming you build a site to attract the most possible visitors anyway.
*I have plenty of disdain for pre-SP2 totally insecure versions that were wont to allow any and all spyware to merrily install itself.
I believe that there is a clear difference between dysfunctional and substantially different content. If a non IE visitor is presented with a substantially different content, why would you consider that being dysfunctional? Today’s market realty substantiate my assumption. Look at Wal*Mart. Their dominant position in the market absolutely dictates that a manufacturer or a service provider MUST comply with their demand of some time EXCLUSIVE packaging. The very same product may or may not be the same in Target, Kmart or other Wal*Mart competitors. In case of IE, having control of over 70% of this highly contested market, defies the logic that their product is dysfunctional. It is beside the point how this monopoly was conjured up, the fact remains that IE is, and for any foreseeable future will command a substantially large portion of the market compared to other offerings.hutcheson said:
jeanmanco
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The ODP guidelines are here: http://dmoz.org/guidelines/ .
As you see, there is no mention of browsers. However this is an issue that has been discussed internally. The advice of experienced editors has generally been that a site functioning only in a single browser can be listed. Editors may add a warning to the description e.g. [Requires Internet Explorer].
Having said that, obviously there is no obligation on editors to test each site in every possible browser. So I have no doubt that some sites are listed without any warning which function fine in one browser, but not in all.
If an editor realises that a site requires a browser he doesn't care to use, then let's say it is regarded as good practice to leave it for another editor to review. But it isn't always obvious that browser incompatibility is the problem.
Let's hope that IE7 will consign these problems to the dustbin of history. http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/
As you see, there is no mention of browsers. However this is an issue that has been discussed internally. The advice of experienced editors has generally been that a site functioning only in a single browser can be listed. Editors may add a warning to the description e.g. [Requires Internet Explorer].
Having said that, obviously there is no obligation on editors to test each site in every possible browser. So I have no doubt that some sites are listed without any warning which function fine in one browser, but not in all.
If an editor realises that a site requires a browser he doesn't care to use, then let's say it is regarded as good practice to leave it for another editor to review. But it isn't always obvious that browser incompatibility is the problem.
Let's hope that IE7 will consign these problems to the dustbin of history. http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/
No, "substantially different content" is not disfunctional, unless the "difference" is that NO content is provided for the browser that happens to be used by the reviewer (which WOULD look like disfunctionality unless there were some kind of note like "this site wouldn't be so disfunctional if you were less intolerant of having your computer hacked by sites with, um, IE-only functionality.")
The moral is -- we can't tell you who to set up your site for: but just tell the user what equipment they need to view the site! That way, editors and other surfers without such equipment can avoid the site, and editors with that equipment can review it. For the surfers' convenience, significant requirements are often also mentioned in the ODP listing.
The moral is -- we can't tell you who to set up your site for: but just tell the user what equipment they need to view the site! That way, editors and other surfers without such equipment can avoid the site, and editors with that equipment can review it. For the surfers' convenience, significant requirements are often also mentioned in the ODP listing.
Alucard
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No, riz, I believe that that is an opinion, rather than a fact. I have read articles about how Firefox is gaining a large foothold in the browser market. I am also reading things about more and more people accessing web content in non-windows browsers, such as PDAs, cell-phones (mobiles) and the like.riz said:
So for the "foreseeable future", I think it's more up-in-the-air now about web browsers than it has been in a long time.
..and I believe that web designers who call themselves "professional" should think about things like that, rather than assuming that the status quo will remain....
I only use IE when reviewing sites. Apparently I am completely mad but I believe I have sufficient supplementary software protecting me. So if a site doesn't work in IE then I wouldn't be able to see it. Had that once and got other editors to check it out for me - the site was OK - the site was listed. I think there are editors who won't review Flash sites so they might take longer. But you have no way of telling which editor is going to try and review a site first and an editor could decline to do a review and leave it for another editor (not reject to be clear) for many reasons so you could wait longer if you use all red on green and green on red text and the editor that hits it first is colourblind. Or the site contains information on a slaughterhouse and the editor is a veggie. Whatever problems surfers could have looking at a site editors will also encounter with a similar degree of randomness.
I recall there was a case a while back of a site with some particularly irritating background music which drove editors off (and presumably potential customers too) in seconds. The site probably took longer to list than would have been the case had it been silent because it had to wait for an editor to come along who knew how to mute the volume.
I recall there was a case a while back of a site with some particularly irritating background music which drove editors off (and presumably potential customers too) in seconds. The site probably took longer to list than would have been the case had it been silent because it had to wait for an editor to come along who knew how to mute the volume.
Callimachus
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I had one yesterday that the entire site was served up via javascript, not just navigation. It didn't matter what browser you used. If you had javascript disabled in the slightest all you got was a blank page.
I remember coming across some tv show subsites on a major television station's site (can't remember which one -- maybe Nickelodeon?) where the navigation menu came up in a Javascript-triggered pop-up Window. If you had Javascript disabled or were using a Mac (the JS didn't work on Mac), you saw the opening intro page and no way to get anywhere else.
Then there are the people who have Java buttons as their only navigation. Not everyone wants to run Java applets willy nilly (and, again, they don't always work on a Mac) and so if you couldn't view the Java applets, you couldn't navigate the sites.
Then there are the people who have Java buttons as their only navigation. Not everyone wants to run Java applets willy nilly (and, again, they don't always work on a Mac) and so if you couldn't view the Java applets, you couldn't navigate the sites.
The server side scripting has developed enough to overcome most user interface and content delivery issues. I am in the habit of checking the html code, of engaging and interesting websites, generated by the web servers for different browsers. It is quite educational to see the techniques being employed to normalize the content across different platforms and different versions of the same browser.
spectregunner
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This is all fine and good for commercial sites backedup by programming content; but the entire www is far from commercial (even though commercial interestes seem to try and dominate it).
Hobbyists, such as myself, update their website every year or so (whether it needs it or not) and tend to be very, very far from the cutting edge. Thus, ther are a lot of sites out there that are MSIE only, and will stay that way for the forseeable future. The bad seeds that M$ planted by trying to take over the web with "their" standards will continue to bear bitter fruit.
Hobbyists, such as myself, update their website every year or so (whether it needs it or not) and tend to be very, very far from the cutting edge. Thus, ther are a lot of sites out there that are MSIE only, and will stay that way for the forseeable future. The bad seeds that M$ planted by trying to take over the web with "their" standards will continue to bear bitter fruit.
With the advent of very affordable shared hosting solutions with database back ends, it is quite conceivable that most websites, personal and non-profit, will deliver dynamic content in the very near future. The immense proliferation of blogs has insured a very wide deployment of RSS feeds. As you already know, these feeds are not only XML based, but also generated dynamically to be most informative and up-to-date. The current offerings of do it your self website authoring packages can handle most of the backend programming and interfacing chores. I don’t believe that Microsoft has set any standards other than Windows OS and ActiveX. They tend to interpret the standards set by others to their convenience. Netscape 4 did that. Netscape and FireFox do it even now. The –moz-inline-box value for CSS display attribute is just one example. There is a long list of these special interpretations, adaptations or improvements over the current standards. A truly invisible backend does not really exist. There is almost always a compromise in content delivery when it comes down to platform support. Having a commanding share of the browser market, IE does represent the largest segment of the user community.
spectregunner
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No, I disagree. the technology creep you describe is not nearly as widespread as you would believe, or try and have others believe.
Certainly it exists, and is driven by a small population of the user community. Look at e-mail. Fifteen years ago, Intel's Andy Grove was on the trade show circuit promoting the concept of "fat" e-mail, hoping to drive demand for the 386 processor.
Yet today, the vast majority of e-mail is still ascii text. And will be for a very long time. This is not a "build it and they will come" scenario. Build it and the technology wonks will embrace it is mroe like it. You'd be stunned at the number of websites we review that are simply flat HTML. A lot of them are 3.0 too.
But getting back to your original question:
Those are your words not ours.
I rarely use MSIE on my system -- the security risks are just too high. I also assume that most site render properly in MSIE.
I've never refused to review a site because it only works in MSIE. I have refused to review some all flash sites -- because MSIE's handling of flash as an axtive x control leaves my system wide open to too many problems.
What I regularly do is indicate in a website's notes [May not display properly with all browsers]. If that "penalizes" a websites, too bad, it does what it should: cautions the surfer that they may have an unpleasant surfing experience if they click through. to me, that is an act of kindness for my fellow surfers.
Certainly it exists, and is driven by a small population of the user community. Look at e-mail. Fifteen years ago, Intel's Andy Grove was on the trade show circuit promoting the concept of "fat" e-mail, hoping to drive demand for the 386 processor.
Yet today, the vast majority of e-mail is still ascii text. And will be for a very long time. This is not a "build it and they will come" scenario. Build it and the technology wonks will embrace it is mroe like it. You'd be stunned at the number of websites we review that are simply flat HTML. A lot of them are 3.0 too.
But getting back to your original question:
Those are your words not ours.
I rarely use MSIE on my system -- the security risks are just too high. I also assume that most site render properly in MSIE.
I've never refused to review a site because it only works in MSIE. I have refused to review some all flash sites -- because MSIE's handling of flash as an axtive x control leaves my system wide open to too many problems.
What I regularly do is indicate in a website's notes [May not display properly with all browsers]. If that "penalizes" a websites, too bad, it does what it should: cautions the surfer that they may have an unpleasant surfing experience if they click through. to me, that is an act of kindness for my fellow surfers.