Most frequently encountered invalid elements/attributes

[Brian Wilson-4]

Hi all,

I've just had MAMA do a validation pass on about 4.8 million URLs as
part of an updated study of URLs that it previously analyzed. Olivier
and the rest of the kind W3C crew were able to help in this process
and I just wanted to give a big thanks for that.

There is a lot more analysis and filtering of the results to do
before I can speak to what was discovered, but there was one specific
request that I can already say something about. Keep in mind that
these results are pretty raw, and I can try and do some further
correlation if needed.

The main validation errors that MAMA encountered in its last crawl
were error 76 (element not defined) and 108 (no attribute X). The way
I set up MAMA's storage last time, it didn't save the arguments for
individual error messages. Since 76 and 108 were the most popular, it
was interesting (especially for Olivier and company) to try and find
out this time what elements and attributes were generating the most
errors.

Here's a list of the top 50 "element not defined" error arguments:

Rank      Element             Quantity
----------------------------------------
1         embed               596216
2         frame               261478
3         frameset            261414
4         marquee             119502
5         script              101868
6         font                98239
7         meta                97210
8         nobr                85973
9         a                   82982
10        img                 69357
11        center              67397
12        iframe              59825
13        br                  59763
14        td                  58999
15        tr                  57505
16        table               56409
17        o:p                 56238
18        div                 43928
19        p                   40632
20        csscriptdict        28110
21        span                28060
22        csactiondict      27004
23        spacer              26298
24        noscript            26142
25        noindex             24848
26        b                   23482
27        bgsound             22625
28        layer               22304
29        u                   22061
30        blink               20352
31        link                20092
32        input               20049
33        title               19783
34        csobj               19578
35        ilayer              18940
36        tbody               17637
37        scr                 17237
38        variable            16058
39        strong              15946
40        form                14862
41        body                14527
42        head                13999
43        noembed             13139
44        style               12139
45        st1:place           12094
46        param               12008
47        csactions           11831
48        csaction            11787
49        object              11774
50        html                10918
----------------------------------------

And the list of the top 50 "No attribute X" error arguments:

Rank      Element             Quantity
----------------------------------------
1         height              1624934
2         src                 1018458
3         width               926904
4         topmargin           884663
5         leftmargin          831174
6         marginheight        792137
7         background          791243
8         marginwidth         786816
9         name                755187
10        border              745194
11        type                685526
12        pluginspage         498477
13        quality             494275
14        bordercolor         436465
15        align               384137
16        frameborder         321235
17        bgcolor             318466
18        target              289435
19        scrolling           253640
20        framespacing        239515
21        language            224452
22        rows                208679
23        color               197183
24        id                  193811
25        cols                193689
26        valign              159971
27        rightmargin         153635
28        allowscriptaccess   151814
29        style               136092
30        wmode               132042
31        alt                 127582
32        href                125676
33        bottommargin        122285
34        content             116613
35        onmouseover         111657
36        onmouseout          103736
37        onclick             100550
38        hspace              99552
39        size                93957
40        class               93321
41        loop                92015
42        vspace              89939
43        onload              79416
44        allowfullscreen     74648
45        cellpadding         73775
46        bordercolorlight    72975
47        cellspacing         71222
48        scrollamount        69989
49        bordercolordark     69810
50        face                68687
----------------------------------------

(It might be interesting for the error message to also list the
element it is hitting the attribute error with - that would
help explain why height is occurring almost twice as much as
width here).

Hope this is interesting and/or helpful,
-Brian

[Cindy Sue Causey]

On 3/16/09, Brian Wilson <bloo@...> wrote:
>
> The main validation errors that MAMA encountered in its last crawl
> were error 76 (element not defined) and 108 (no attribute X). The way
> I set up MAMA's storage last time, it didn't save the arguments for
> individual error messages. Since 76 and 108 were the most popular, it
> was interesting (especially for Olivier and company) to try and find
> out this time what elements and attributes were generating the most
> errors.



Very cool.. Indubitably on the "attribute X".. For those websites I've
validated then forwarded the information to webmasters/webmistresses,
this is the one I run into most often, too.. Deprecated attributes on
tables are where it seems like I see it most often..

Following next behind the above, this Keyboard most often encounters
raw ampersands, script missing type "text/javascript", and improperly
closed [elements] with respect to the document type used..

Thinking out loud as I'm moving on to the next email in my inbox ::
Awesome would be the ability to deprecate the most often expressed
response to highlighted errors which is: I can't do anything about it
because it's the advertiser/third party code I'm using (which most
often it indeed has *not* been).. :wink, grin:

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock..

Cindy Sue

- :: -
Olmstead Decision * 10 Years * June 22, 2009

http://claimid.com/Butterfly
Georgia Voices That Count, 2005
Talking Rock, GA, USA

[Lou King]

I need some advice/guidance about design tools.

For reference I'm a "mossback" software type. My first "hello world"
program was saved on paper tape for a computer with drum memory - And it
was state of the art. I have upgraded my hardware sense then, grudgingly
using windows OS. I have been using/supporting W3 online validators for
my web page which is an example <http://www.knob.com> of where I am on
web design. I've been using Adobe PhotoShop to create some photo
elements to past into my granddaughter's web page.

My problem: I'm working with a non-profit and made suggestions about how
they could improve their web pages <http://www.atheatregroup.org/> which
are out of date among other things. Their relationship with the
developer is "not ideal." I think the answer is about to be 'OK, your so
smart, fix it.'

As you can see the current pages has been developed with Adobe GoLive
and Front Page. I feel I will need to provide an order more glitz than
what I have been doing. On the other hand the town does not have fiber
optic. Lots of folks use a town wide WiFi vis DSL. One of the board
members has dial-up. I mention this as a guide for the upper limit on
bandwidth. (When I go to Silverton for the summer, I take a VSAT.)

Suggestions? tools? books? guidance? Thanks. Lou