[wp-hackers] Is WP back end supposed to work without JavaScript?

[Austin Matzko]

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 10:08 AM, Jennifer Hodgdon <yahgrp at poplarware.com> wrote:
> So my question to the list is: Is the back end of WP supposed to work with
> JavaScript disabled? In other words, is this lack of functionality without
> JavaScript a bug, or was it done on purpose? I thought that standard web practice was to have things degrade nicely without JavaScript.

I would say if WordPress requires JavaScript to accomplish a certain
task, then it's a bug.

* The WP requirements page says nothing about having a
JavaScript-enabled client [1].
* From the first paragraph, the WP features page trumpets its W3C
standards-compliance [2].  By failing to gracefully degrade in older
clients, WP violates the W3C "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines"
[3].
* WP hurts its potential market share by excluding those who must
follow accessibility guidelines for their site.

[1] http://wordpress.org/about/requirements/
[2] http://wordpress.org/about/features/
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/#gl-new-technologies