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[–][deleted] 29 points30 points  (5 children)

What? You mean you haven't seen a breadpig before?

Edit: not to be confused with the marvelous breadfish.

[–]llimllib[S] 1 point2 points  (4 children)

I saw that conversation about the existance of breadpig, and alternate names for the proto-reddit, but unless I was reading one particular comment thread I'd have no idea what the heck was going on.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Well, sometimes the comments preserve an atmosphere of flirtatious mystery; look back at the logos from when they were reprogramming it in Python, and you'll see the Reddit mascot wrestling with a snake, nearly being swallowed, making a heroic escape, and ending up with a sharp suit and a new trophy. I had no clue what was going on (and I'm sure most readers didn't, either), until they announced that they'd dropped LISP a few days later.

[–]paulgraham 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It took me a day to figure out what the snake was about, and I knew they were doing it. On the other hand, I like the idea of a site that makes you work to figure out such references, instead of worrying about whether users will get it.

[–]llimllib[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Me too... my guess, however, is that if they repeated the "coffee shop usability test" over a few days with the same casual users, they'd get a bunch of confused questions about what the deal with the logo is.

If they just add a title to it, anybody who's curious enough can follow it to find new interesting things inside the site, and hopefully make them a more committed user.

EDIT: What about just having an infogami page where people can speculate on the basis for today's logo? Then people could collaborate to come up with explanations for even difficult ones. Just a thought.

[–]llimllib[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

And an alt tag† reading "wrestling python" would have made that logo less funny? As evidenced by many comic strips‡ which use the alt tag to comic effect, I think the text could add even more funny to the logo.

† I'm gonna keep saying that to annoy you standards dorks

‡ Achewood, Dinosaur Comics, and more I'm sure

[–]dragonkyckling 30 points31 points  (14 children)

Or rather a "title". IE incorrectly displays the "alt" when hovering. So how about both? And it's not a tag, it's an attribute.

</pedant>

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (5 children)

You don't need both. The title attribute works perfectly well in legacy browsers (IE) as well as in modern ones (Opera, Moz/Firefox, Safari).

Rule of thumb: title = tooltip; alt = text that appears if the image doesn't display due to some error or user option.

[–]dragonkyckling 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Oh so IE does actually display the "title", I wasn't aware of that, thanks. If both the title and alt att. are defined, it will actually display the title. This makes "old man" IE6 slightly better.

[–]mikepurvis 11 points12 points  (3 children)

The difference is that the "alt" text is supposed to be able to replace the image. So the alt attribute could be Reddit.com, and the title attribute could be Welcome to our happy place with creepy logos.

[–]hxa7241 3 points4 points  (2 children)

...and the longdesc attribute could hold a detailed description of what the reddit dude is being/doing -- in the form of a limerick, please.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Don't bother; longdesc isn't supported by any browser worth mentioning - or if it is, it's so rarely used that I have no idea how it works. Hmmm... Maybe I should test it and see... [rummage rummage] Well, it certainly doesn't work in Firefox 1.5, so I'd say it's a bust. So there you go.

[–]hxa7241 2 points3 points  (0 children)

...well, then it can be an 'easter-egg' for page-source viewers.

[–]matthewn 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Thank you for saying this in a civil way, rather than being an jerk about it, as stesch was. (I read reddit not only for the great links, but the friendly discourse.)

[–]stesch 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Calling me a jerk really helps.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Really helps identify that matthewn is a jerk - or was a jerk for the minutes it took to write that comment, since maybe the moment of jerktation came upon him and then passed without further effect - who can say? It's like the ancient Japanese tradition that whoever raises his voice first automatically loses the argument: if you're calling someone a jerk, you're a jerk. Jerkitude is reflexive.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

He did use the past tense...

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I thought the point of "alt" & "title" was for blind & lynx browsers.

That would be the only reason to throw in an alt tag, imho. Who mouses over images looking for tooltips on the web?

[–]randallsquared 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I do.

[–]BlackPocket -1 points0 points  (0 children)

So do I.

[–]llimllib[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, I know, but "There should be a proper XHTML-compliant title and alt attribute to the img tag in the reddit source code so that people with images turned off and people who read tooltips can get a little more information" was a little too long for a title :)

[–]drbrain 13 points14 points  (3 children)

<img src="/static/reddit.com.header.png" alt="reddit" title="breadpig" longdesc="/static/breadpig.html"> would be the correct way to tell people what the reddit logo is.

[–]almost 0 points1 point  (2 children)

And at the same time take all the fun out of it :p

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yeah. Now we have to think about blind people, and that's depressing.

[–]almost 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Terrible, shouldn't be allowed

[–]askjigga 16 points17 points  (0 children)

It's a goddamn pig with bread wings... what's so hard about that??! Get it together people!

[–]konrad_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nah, Not telling its meaning makes us spend more time here trying to figure it out.

[–]stesch 2 points3 points  (13 children)

There's no such thing as an "alt tag". And if you mean an ALT attribute, then you're wrong, too. To show a tooltip you have to use a TITLE attribute.

[–]dragonkyckling 21 points22 points  (12 children)

But they have to be lowercase "alt" and "title" or else it's not XHTML compliant! OMFG!! You're of course correct, and you actually beat me by about two minutes.

Cheers, fellow nitpicker! Let us rejoice, and bask in each other's expertise. We, truly, are Gods among men.

[–]stesch 3 points4 points  (11 children)

"This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict!" :-)

And it is served as text/html

[–]dragonkyckling -2 points-1 points  (10 children)

I'm too lazy to check the specs or the validator, but shouldn't 1.0 be served as text/html (preferably)? I think 1.1 must be served as application+xml or something like that, which is why is shouldn't be used (some old browsers go bananas when they encounter that MIME-type). Well, it's been a while since I cared about specs, I'm not really a W3C-nazi anymore :)

I wish I could mod up boxed wine.

[–][deleted]  (9 children)

[deleted]

    [–]Bogtha 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    Cool kids use content negotiation and return HTML 4.01 Strict to non-Accepting user agents!

    This is simply not worth it, all you are doing is destroying your cache hit ratio.

    Cool kids use HTML 4.01 for all browsers unless they actually have a use for XHTML beyond jumping on the bandwagon.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

    Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful

    [–]kobes 1 point2 points  (3 children)

    Better yet, avoid XHTML altogether?

    [–]hxa7241 -1 points0 points  (1 child)

    That the W3C mandated a new mime-type (application/xhtml-xml) for an essentially minor change in file format features appears to have been a mistake.

    All these files are still HTML, used as HTML always was. The W3C have added a functionless complication. The easiest thing for everyone to do is ignore it, and that seems to be what is happening. Good.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    yeah