1 Maybe also a "Patent Pending" symbol?

Seeing how many ridiculous patents get granted that sometimes even cover well-published methods from ALA, I would suggest to design a “patent pending” sign.

See, just as one example, the patent granted to google:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,839,702.WKU.&OS=PN/6,839,702&RS=PN/6,839,702

This is a patent on highlighting search terms, something coverd in

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/searchhighlight/

Well, IANAL, but I think that something is going wrong here.

Kind rgeards

Jan Wildeboer

posted at 07:08 am on January 18, 2005 by Jan Wildeboer

2 Sounds sensible...

…and will hopefully stop hours of hopelessly pointless arguements in comments. I can think of a few other publications that should implement something similar.

posted at 07:50 am on January 18, 2005 by Andrew Hume

3 I, for one, applaud this move

It’s a basic caveat before delving deeper into the article that, “hey, you may not want to do this, but this is really cool.” Not always necessarily “cool”, but the techniques are interesting enought to warrant an article, while at the same time, not necessarily “best practice”. At least it should reduce the number of flames received. I look forward to seeing this in practice.

posted at 07:53 am on January 18, 2005 by Charles Martin

4 Just don't bother...

ALA has always given me what I wanted… I even wrote (a very simple) article and they clearly said “No way”. This made me feel good! From then on I knew, well sort of, that ALA’s articles are to be taken serious.

However this never ment I would think of ALA as some God-Like on-line magazine… Thank ‘god’ I’ve never been a believer ;)

Everything is to be taken with a grain of salt and I think most people know that. So next time, pleez give me an article telling me something I don’t know… (a part from that caution sign picture… sorry, there goes my point)

Mathijs

posted at 07:54 am on January 18, 2005 by Mathijs Dumon

5 Well, the icon is sweet!

I’m digging this idea. I hope people can learn to take things at what they are. The “markup purist” mentality only goes so far – at the end of the day, there are just going to be things that need to get done, whether it can be done with perfectly semantic markup or not. That’s the nature of the beast.

Good move. Keep publishing articles that push the envelope. When you run into a situation where you need the effect, it’s certainly nice to be able to come here for the solution!

posted at 08:08 am on January 18, 2005 by Ryan Brill

6 Thanks

As a fresh college grad trying to absorb as much design knowledge as I can from sites like yours, I really appreciate the warning graphic. The same professors who steered us away from presentational HTML hacks are the ones who praised ALA and recommended we set it as our home page. This made sense until I saw these “hacky” solutions pop up every once in a while and I wondered, “what is this? Is this okay? Can I use this?”
I’ve decided it IS okay to use these solutions, when necessary. The warning graphic is a good way to let us know that the practices that follow may be questionable. So thanks.

Josh

posted at 08:19 am on January 18, 2005 by Josh Meyer

7 Kudos on a great idea

We need a venue for experimentation and collaboration, no doubt about it. At uni I was always amazed at what happened when diverse-discipline people got together to make things happen.

Congrats on a great idea, looking forward to pushing the boundaies…

posted at 08:34 am on January 18, 2005 by Mike P.

8 An experiment unlikely to succeed...

…that car is totally not going to be able to drive on top of that water. I guarantee it!

posted at 08:42 am on January 18, 2005 by kadavy

9 great idea ALA

This is a great idea. Hopefully this categorization will help clear out some of the antagonistic posts.

The irony is that people were replying that these articles didn’t have a place for average Web usage. At the same time they were stating this they were also confirming the assumptions of the ALA editors/authors. The assumtion that people are smart enough not to read this article and blindly start using the techniques in in-appropriate ways.

posted at 08:42 am on January 18, 2005 by Reid Durbin

10 excellent idea

the warning is an excellent idea. far too often i come across designers/developers who take anything they see on ALA as the law without putting it into context…heck, without even reading the article, skipping straight to the bits of code. nice one!

posted at 08:44 am on January 18, 2005 by patrick h. lauke

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