W3C Validator, and Yahoo Webhosting

[Greg Heilers]

Greetings,

It is wonderful to find such a useful group. This is my first
time here, so I apologize up front, if this question has been
asked (and answered) a thousand times before.

While validating my code with the W3C Validator, I pass (get
"The Green") while my files reside on my local computer. However,
once I upload them to the host (Yahoo Webhostings...the paid version,
*not* Geocities), I get error messages (and a "Fail"), due to
the lines of tracking code that gets appended to the ends of the pages,
after my </html> tags.

Now, I know that *my* code has "passed", but I still feel a tad
uneasy about including the "valid-html401" image and link on my
web pages, even though the failing code is from the host, and
not my own hand.

Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed; or...
is there a work-around situation for this host-tacked-on code?

Thanks...
--

Greg Heilers
Registered Linux user #328317 - SlackWare 10.1 (2.6.10)
.....

As far as anyone knows we're a nice, normal family.

-- Homer Simpson
There's No Disgrace Like Home

[Tim]

On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 07:41:51 +0000, Greg Heilers sent:

While validating my code with the W3C Validator, I pass (get "The Green")
while my files reside on my local computer. However, once I upload them
to the host (Yahoo Webhostings...the paid version, *not* Geocities), I get
error messages (and a "Fail"), due to the lines of tracking code that gets
appended to the ends of the pages, after my </html> tags.
They bugger up your HTML when you pay for hosting? Get your money back
and go elsewhere for hosting.
Now, I know that *my* code has "passed", but I still feel a tad uneasy
about including the "valid-html401" image and link on my web pages, even
though the failing code is from the host, and not my own hand.
The validator's self-awarding badge of honour icon thing tends to be a
waste of time at best. Do you really want to draw people's attention
away from what you've done to how you've done it? And most people have no
clue about what it's about. But it's certainly not applicable to claim
your pages are valid when they're not. It doesn't matter how you create
them, it's what's served that counts.
Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed; or... is there a
work-around situation for this host-tacked-on code?

None. If they've stuffed your HTML, there's no avoiding that - they've
broken it, pure and simple. Get them to stop that, or use some other
hosting service.

[Spartanicus]

Greg Heilers <gN************@earthNOSPAMlink.net> wrote:

While validating my code with the W3C Validator, I pass (get
"The Green") while my files reside on my local computer. However,
once I upload them to the host (Yahoo Webhostings...the paid version,
*not* Geocities), I get error messages (and a "Fail"), due to
the lines of tracking code that gets appended to the ends of the pages,
after my </html> tags.
[...]
Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed; or...
is there a work-around situation for this host-tacked-on code?

Ditch Yahoo and get a proper host.

--
Spartanicus

[David Dorward]

Greg Heilers wrote:

[On 'free' hosts which modify pages betten upload and delivery to client]

Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed;

Yes - get a better host :)
--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

[Arne]

Once upon a time *Greg Heilers* wrote:

Greetings,

It is wonderful to find such a useful group. This is my first
time here, so I apologize up front, if this question has been
asked (and answered) a thousand times before.

While validating my code with the W3C Validator, I pass (get
"The Green") while my files reside on my local computer. However,
once I upload them to the host (Yahoo Webhostings...the paid version,
*not* Geocities), I get error messages (and a "Fail"), due to
the lines of tracking code that gets appended to the ends of the pages,
after my </html> tags.

Now, I know that *my* code has "passed", but I still feel a tad
uneasy about including the "valid-html401" image and link on my
web pages, even though the failing code is from the host, and
not my own hand.

Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed; or...
is there a work-around situation for this host-tacked-on code?

If you are paying for the service, you should have an option to remove
the Yahoo tracking code and use an other that you can make valid, if
you still want sutch tracking for the pages. If you don't have the
option, just tell Yahoo to go to hell and move to an other host!

--
/Arne
Now killing all posts originating at GoogleGroups
Workaround: http://www.safalra.com/special/googlegroupsreply/
-------------------------------------------------------------

[Stan Brown]

On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 07:41:51 GMT in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Greg Heilers favored us with...

While validating my code with the W3C Validator, I pass (get
"The Green") while my files reside on my local computer. However,
once I upload them to the host (Yahoo Webhostings...the paid version,
*not* Geocities), I get error messages (and a "Fail"), due to
the lines of tracking code that gets appended to the ends of the pages,
after my </html> tags.

Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed;

Sure -- use a real Web host, not one that forces you to deliver bad
pages. There are plenty of inexpensive hosts available, and a quick
google through the archives of this group will show them.

And you're not even getting this Yahoo "service" for free? They're
CHARGING you to screw up your pages?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you

[Greg Heilers]

Tim wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 07:41:51 +0000, Greg Heilers sent:

While validating my code with the W3C Validator, I pass (get "The Green")
while my files reside on my local computer. However, once I upload them
to the host (Yahoo Webhostings...the paid version, *not* Geocities), I
get error messages (and a "Fail"), due to the lines of tracking code that
gets appended to the ends of the pages, after my </html> tags.

They bugger up your HTML when you pay for hosting? Get your money back
and go elsewhere for hosting.

Thanks everyone...it seems that all your suggestions share they same
point-of-view. I failed to mention that I am doing this particular code
work for a friend, as a favor, and it is *she* who is paying for the
service. So, *I* am not getting a bad deal "monetary-wise", but it still
bothers me to see other's code tacked onto the end of my own code...
hence the "moral dilemma" remark I made.

I think I will first send off a series of emails to Yahoo, to see if I
can get them to give me a valid reason for *why* they do such a thing.

--

Greg Heilers
Registered Linux user #328317 - SlackWare 10.1 (2.6.10)
.....

Aw, Dad, you've done a lot of great things, but you're a very old man, and
old people are useless.

-- Homer Simpson
Homer the Vigilante

[Stephen Poley]

On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 14:58:26 GMT, Greg Heilers
<gN************@earthNOSPAMlink.net> wrote:

Tim wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 07:41:51 +0000, Greg Heilers sent:

While validating my code with the W3C Validator, I pass (get "The Green")
while my files reside on my local computer. However, once I upload them
to the host (Yahoo Webhostings...the paid version, *not* Geocities), I
get error messages (and a "Fail"), due to the lines of tracking code that
gets appended to the ends of the pages, after my </html> tags.
They bugger up your HTML when you pay for hosting? Get your money back
and go elsewhere for hosting.

Thanks everyone...it seems that all your suggestions share they same
point-of-view. I failed to mention that I am doing this particular code
work for a friend, as a favor, and it is *she* who is paying for the
service.
Well, in that case the answer to your original question is simple: I
certainly wouldn't put the "valid" icons on the site.
I think I will first send off a series of emails to Yahoo, to see if I
can get them to give me a valid reason for *why* they do such a thing.

Good luck. If a few dozen other people do the same I suppose there's
some chance they might take notice ...

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Hans-Joachim Zierke]

Greg Heilers schrieb:

Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed; or...
is there a work-around situation for this host-tacked-on code?

First let me say, that it _must_ be this way. Valid pages under a
Yahoo address would damage their reputation. I once tried to
participate in a Yahoo forum, and it never worked. I don't know,
but assume, that with a certain browser / cookie setting /
Javascript setting / whatever, I could make it work, but I simply
didn't bother with that junk.

So you better assume, that Yahoo won't be able, to improve that
attachment to validity, and get a better provider.


That said ...

It is understandable, that you want to put that badge on the first
of your technically improved pages. But believe me: In half a year,
you'll smile about it. ;-)

Validation has 3 rewards:

1) Visitors with non-standard browsers aren't sent away.

2) Your site will still work in 5 years (which also means, that invalid
commercial sites are a good idea, if you want to sell a relaunch
regularely, and the customer is dumb enough).

3) You can easily find the unwanted results of your editing work with
a batch validation. (The WDG Validator does up to 100 pages, and
if that's not enough, you can install it locally.) I do a monthly
batch validation for the little bugs that pass my eyes.
But while your readers will like good access to your site, few of them
will be interested, /how/ you did that. My own solution has been, to
have a separate http://zierke.com/tech/ with some explanations, and
I've put that badge on that single page.

This way, I can also judge, how interested my visitors are, to read
about the technical details of the HTML...

My site does not have any mainstream content, and therefore does not
have many visitors. Perhaps 10 000 page hits per month, of which
3000 - 3500 come from Yahoo Slurp, Googlebot, and comrades.
And now do your guess - of the 6500 - 7000 "real" page hits, how many
hits for the "tech" page?

40. [1]


This might give you a feeling, how important the issue might be for
for your readers. ;-) Readers like the results, but typically don't
bother, how it was achieved.
Hans-Joachim

[1] Actually, the answer is 42, but newsgroups readers won't believe me,
that I didn't make that up. ;-)

[Guy Macon]

Hans-Joachim Zierke wrote:

Greg Heilers schrieb:

Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed; or...
is there a work-around situation for this host-tacked-on code?

First let me say, that it _must_ be this way. Valid pages under a
Yahoo address would damage their reputation. I once tried to
participate in a Yahoo forum, and it never worked. I don't know,
but assume, that with a certain browser / cookie setting /
Javascript setting / whatever, I could make it work, but I simply
didn't bother with that junk.

So you better assume, that Yahoo won't be able, to improve that
attachment to validity, and get a better provider.

That said ...

It is understandable, that you want to put that badge on the first
of your technically improved pages. But believe me: In half a year,
you'll smile about it. ;-)

Validation has 3 rewards:

1) Visitors with non-standard browsers aren't sent away.

2) Your site will still work in 5 years (which also means, that invalid
commercial sites are a good idea, if you want to sell a relaunch
regularely, and the customer is dumb enough).

3) You can easily find the unwanted results of your editing work with
a batch validation. (The WDG Validator does up to 100 pages, and
if that's not enough, you can install it locally.) I do a monthly
batch validation for the little bugs that pass my eyes.
But while your readers will like good access to your site, few of them
will be interested, /how/ you did that. My own solution has been, to
have a separate http://zierke.com/tech/ with some explanations, and
I've put that badge on that single page.

This way, I can also judge, how interested my visitors are, to read
about the technical details of the HTML...

My site does not have any mainstream content, and therefore does not
have many visitors. Perhaps 10 000 page hits per month, of which
3000 - 3500 come from Yahoo Slurp, Googlebot, and comrades.
And now do your guess - of the 6500 - 7000 "real" page hits, how many
hits for the "tech" page?

40. [1]

This might give you a feeling, how important the issue might be for
for your readers. ;-) Readers like the results, but typically don't
bother, how it was achieved.

Hans-Joachim
[1] Actually, the answer is 42, but newsgroups readers won't believe me,
that I didn't make that up. ;-)

In a couple of days you will have a rough estimate of how many people
read your posts to comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html... :)

[Greg Heilers]

Hans-Joachim Zierke wrote:

[[[ Replied with a lot of good advice ]]]
Yeah...I know the "badge" is mostly a "vanity thing" for most
people who use it; but I still like to enforce the idea that
there *should* be standards that everyone should strive for.
I see it as being similar to associates at work, who when
sending memos back and forth, seem to demonstrate that they
never learned even the rudimentary concepts about grammar
and punctuation. I always want to send their memos back, asking
for "the grammatically correct" version.

:o)

And as I said elsewhere, this code work is for a friend; and it
is *she* who is paying for the hosting. So, it is no "financial
burden" on myself...just a bit of irritation over having my own
code doctored in such a way.
--

Greg Heilers
Registered Linux user #328317 - SlackWare 10.1 (2.6.10)
.....

As far as anyone knows we're a nice, normal family.

-- Homer Simpson
There's No Disgrace Like Home

[Hans-Joachim Zierke]

Guy Macon schrieb:

In a couple of days you will have a rough estimate of how many people
read your posts to comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html... :)

Obviously, my fan club is of limited size.

That's reassuring: I should stick with working on my (traffic planning)
content instead. ;-)
Hans-Joachim
--
"Lars Kasper" <se****************@LarsKasper.de> schrieb: Hoffentlich positioniert sie es dort nicht auch noch fixiert.

body { position: bondage } (Steffi Abel)

[Shawn K. Quinn]

begin quotation
from Greg Heilers <gN************@earthNOSPAMlink.net>
in message <oj*****************@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink. net>
posted at 2005-10-09T17:20

And as I said elsewhere, this code work is for a friend; and it
is *she* who is paying for the hosting. So, it is no "financial
burden" on myself...just a bit of irritation over having my own
code doctored in such a way.

Well, that's Yahoo for you. I bet they would quit doing this in a hurry
if, say, Opera, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox actually ignored the code
after </html>. (Internet Exploder probably won't ever be fixed in this
regard, sadly.) For all I know, maybe at least one already does (I
haven't experimented with this issue at length).

--
___ _ _____ |*|
/ __| |/ / _ \ |*| Shawn K. Quinn
\__ \ ' < (_) | |*| sk*****@speakeasy.net
|___/_|\_\__\_\ |*| Houston, TX, USA

[David Ross]

Greg Heilers wrote:

Greetings,

It is wonderful to find such a useful group. This is my first
time here, so I apologize up front, if this question has been
asked (and answered) a thousand times before.

While validating my code with the W3C Validator, I pass (get
"The Green") while my files reside on my local computer. However,
once I upload them to the host (Yahoo Webhostings...the paid version,
*not* Geocities), I get error messages (and a "Fail"), due to
the lines of tracking code that gets appended to the ends of the pages,
after my </html> tags.

Now, I know that *my* code has "passed", but I still feel a tad
uneasy about including the "valid-html401" image and link on my
web pages, even though the failing code is from the host, and
not my own hand.

Has the solution to this "moral dilemma" been addressed; or...
is there a work-around situation for this host-tacked-on code?

If you put the valid-html401.gif on a Web page, someone might
actually try to validate that page. When it fails, your
credibility as a Web developer goes to zero.

What Yahoo is doing is hacking the Web pages. In general, this is
a hostile action that should not be tolerated. It's no better than
some vandal putting graffiti on the side of your house. If it were
an outsider (not Yahoo), it would be a criminal act in some
jurisdictions.

As others have said, find another hosting service. Before you (or
your friend) sign up for a service, make sure they do not hack
their customer's Web pages.

--

David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.

[David Ross]

Hans-Joachim Zierke wrote:

First let me say, that it _must_ be this way. Valid pages under a
Yahoo address would damage their reputation. I once tried to
participate in a Yahoo forum, and it never worked. I don't know,
but assume, that with a certain browser / cookie setting /
Javascript setting / whatever, I could make it work, but I simply
didn't bother with that junk.

So you better assume, that Yahoo won't be able, to improve that
attachment to validity, and get a better provider.

That said ...

It is understandable, that you want to put that badge on the first
of your technically improved pages. But believe me: In half a year,
you'll smile about it. ;-)

Validation has 3 rewards:

1) Visitors with non-standard browsers aren't sent away.

2) Your site will still work in 5 years (which also means, that invalid
commercial sites are a good idea, if you want to sell a relaunch
regularely, and the customer is dumb enough).

3) You can easily find the unwanted results of your editing work with
a batch validation. (The WDG Validator does up to 100 pages, and
if that's not enough, you can install it locally.) I do a monthly
batch validation for the little bugs that pass my eyes.

But while your readers will like good access to your site, few of them
will be interested, /how/ you did that. My own solution has been, to
have a separate http://zierke.com/tech/ with some explanations, and
I've put that badge on that single page.

This way, I can also judge, how interested my visitors are, to read
about the technical details of the HTML...

My site does not have any mainstream content, and therefore does not
have many visitors. Perhaps 10 000 page hits per month, of which
3000 - 3500 come from Yahoo Slurp, Googlebot, and comrades.

And now do your guess - of the 6500 - 7000 "real" page hits, how many
hits for the "tech" page?

40. [1]

This might give you a feeling, how important the issue might be for
for your readers. ;-) Readers like the results, but typically don't
bother, how it was achieved.

Hans-Joachim

[1] Actually, the answer is 42, but newsgroups readers won't believe me,
that I didn't make that up. ;-)

I have a page called "Viewing My Web Pages", where I discuss why I
try to adhere to the HTML 4.01 and CSS specifications and the
meaning of the valid-html401.gif graphic. It has had 5,396 hits
since 10 Feb 2004.

I've never looked at what kinds of hits individual pages get. Last
month, I logged the hits on 15 of my pages. Recognizable browsers
accounted for 70.6% of the 1,987 hits over a two week period. The
remaining 29.4% were various bots.

Thus, I extrapolate that "Viewing My Web Pages" received over 3,800
human hits in a little over 1.5 years or more than 6 per day.

I have a non-technical page that has had 58,794 hits since 22 Nov
1998. This is more than 16 human hits per day. Seven years after
I created that page, it still results in several E-mails per
month.

--

David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.