Winkin, Blinkin and Nod

It's good to see when pushed, some clear and succinct responses come out of 
the netherworld.

The consensus seems to be that the Netscape <.BLINK> tag is disliked 
because it's visually annoying.  Fair enough. Mike's comment is 
particularly clear, "I think of it like living is a an apartment and having 
a flashing neon sigh outside you window blinking "Eat at Joes" all night 
long."  At least with <.BLINK>, it doesn't automatically come with the 
BZZZZZZZT, BZZZZZZT sound every time it blinks.  (Don't you *dare* embed 
that sound!)

Then again, the visual annoyance can be a blessing on rare occasions.  I do 
recall using <.BLINK> when requested by the brass because an emergency had 
occurred (this was in a large university) and we needed our users attention 
NOW!  It only lasted for a few hours and we felt use of the <.BLINK> met 
our needs and our users needs.

Chuck's comment that the <.BLINK> tag could trigger epileptic attacks sent 
me to some research.  It's called photosensitive epilepsy and it only 
occurs in less than three percent of all people afflicted with 
epilepsy.  Since epilepsy occurs in 1:200 of the overall population,  this 
comes to about 1:4,000 in the general population, or 1:100,000 incidence 
per year.  (Don'tcha just love statistics?)  With Section 508 requirements 
for web work affiliated with the US Government, it stands to reason that to 
not use <.BLINK> when working for or contracted by the government for web 
design work.

BTW,  96% of people with photosensitive epilepsy are sensitive to lights 
flashing at between 15 and 20 flashes per second.

When I pursued this further, I found another tag with about the same level 
of annoyance as the Netscape <.BLINK> tag.  It's the IE <.MARQUEE> 
tag.  Both are proprietary, non-standard tags.  They each probably stem 
from some programmer's delight in adding a "feature" to a tag set.

One site even proclaimed using both so as to not ignore anyone.

<.BLINK><.MARQUEE>How Rude!</.MARQUEE><./BLINK>

So for the newbies out there, it's not really hated, just annoying.  There 
is a difference.  :)


'Nuff said.



Dennis



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