[Commentor] LC-1992 Francois Daoust (archived comment) [Comment] * HTTP responses and linked resources: I understand the LINK_TARGET_FORMAT test as willing to return WARNs to the user on linked resources, and to never return any FAIL. However, there are several cases in the tests that should be carried by the checker for HTTP responses that return a FAIL, even when the resource is a linked resource: - "If an HTTP request does not result in a valid HTTP response [...], FAIL" - 1 case in "If the response is an HTTPS response" - 2 cases in "If the HTTP status indicates redirection" - "If the HTTP status represents failure (4xx), other than 404 or a request for authentication (e.g. 401), FAIL" I guess one may argue that LINK_TARGET_FORMAT may return a FAIL message. The last point still stands in that case: is a linked resource that returned a 406 Not Acceptable status supposed to trigger a FAIL? I think I should be allowed to include links to external resources that are not able to serve content to the mobileOK checker in a page without losing the possibility for the page to be mobileOK. I would relax the last check to state: "If the HTTP status represents failure (4xx), other than 404 or a request for authentication (e.g. 401): If the response relates to a request for a linked resource (see 2.4.7 Linked Resources), continue with the test (see 3.10 LINK_TARGET_FORMAT ) and warn Otherwise (i.e. for included resources), FAIL" [Commentor reply] yes [Working Group decision] 
Links in a Web page intended for mobile consumption are an important constituent of the user experience. The user should be able to "trust" that clicking on a link does not yield an error message. For that reason, we think that returning FAILs in the LINK_TARGET_FORMAT is indeed needed. However, it occurred to us that HTTP Status 406 responses could well be returned for resources tasted by section 3.15.1 Object Element Processing Rule, and that this should obviously not trigger a FAIL, so we relaxed that last condition in that case as you suggested: http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/BPWG/Group/Drafts/mobileOK-Basic-1.0-Tests/080707r#http_response