Website Award question

[hannah.rogue]

I'm currently reviewing and modifying our team website to meet and hopefully surpass the award criteria.. My question is how important is it that the website passes the validator.w3.org test thing? What specs should I use when running it through? Thanks!

[JohnBoucher]

You will be scored on how well your site validates or doesn't validate. The validator will detect you doctype automagically. If it does not that work on the doctype.

[hannah.rogue]

But what qualifies as good? What's terrible? As far as errors and what not?

[rsisk]

That is up to the individual website reviewer.

If I see zero errors, they get a higher rating. If I see a couple errors, I give a normal rating. If I see more than a couple errors, I'll give a low rating.

[JohnBoucher]

It's simply good practice to validate your code. Almost anything will render in some fashion, but the cleaner the code, the better the rendering. It also helps with your site being indexed.

Validation errors also tend to cascade. One error spawns multiple small errors. The validator gives lots of info on fixing the code.

I agree with rsisk, it's a judgement call. The reviewer can also give extra points if they think you deserve it. A site that validates html, css and Cynthia says deserves the extra points.

I had one last year that left a note in the code saying he did not care about validation.

[Nikki Haux]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

I had one last year that left a note in the code saying he did not care about validation.

haha. I guess they assumed you had a good sense of humor.