[niso-sts] Question regarding alternative and description text

["G. Ken Holman g.ken.holman@xxxxxxxxx" <niso-sts-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fellow NISO STS list members,

May I consider content found in <alt-text> and <long-description> as 
informative and not normative? I see nothing in the documentation 
that states one way or the other.

My thought is that a PDF or paper rendering would (typically) hide 
this content from the reader. As a publisher of said content, do I 
have any obligation to render these elements visibly due to them 
possibly being normative?

I can't think of why they would be normative. Important, yes, but 
authoring STS I wouldn't expect something normative to be stated in 
these elements, so I can make some assumptions when rendering.

Thank you for your thoughts.

. . . . . Ken

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