Voting on MSNBC

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

This thread concerns problems voting on an MSNBC poll is
you use Netscape.  Jamie

---------------
Subject: The No Shame Dept.
   Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 20:01:30 -0500
  From: Mitch Stone <mstone@vc.net>
    To: Multiple recipients of list AM-INFO <am-info@essential.org>


This MSNBC link:

http://go.msn.com/npl/msnt.asp

..purports to allow readers to vote on whether they think Judge Jackson 
is right or wrong. I can't get it to work, but then I'm using Netscape 
Communicator 4.5 to access a page that's been "optimized for Microsoft 
Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player."

Also, try,

http://www.msnbc.com/news/329416.asp?cp1=1

Where the voting button appears. If you're not using MSIE (apparently) 
the button only appears for an instant before vanishing. I had to stop 
the loading process in midstream to even see the button and capture the 
link.



Mitch Stone
mstone@vc.netSubject: 
       Re: MSNBC MS Poll Shows public favors MS ???
   Date: 
       Mon, 8 Nov 1999 09:32:15 -0500
  From: 
       Joe Moore <Joe.Moore@sdrc.com>
    To: 
       Multiple recipients of list AM-INFO <am-info@essential.org>




Simon Cooke wrote:
> 
> From: Gene Gaines <gene.gaines@ibm.net>
> > The "vote" button on the poll at MSNBC vanishes after a few
> > seconds.  Therefore, if you are using Microsoft's
> > Internet Explorer, you are invited to vote on the poll.
> > If your are using Netscape Navigator, you cannot vote.
> 
> After some investigation, it's caused by this:
> 
> The page is written in a combination of HTML and Javascript. The voting form
> is a DHTML layer, created and positioned absolutely (which Netscape isn't
> fond of doing anyway). The layers are built (which is what you're seeing
> when it pops up on Navigator due to its odd partial-rendering logic, by the
> way), and then made visible using the layerobject.visibility = 'visible'
> command.
> 
> Unfortunately, Netscape doesn't recognize the "visibility" attribute (which
> is the correct way of handling it according to the CSS specs from the W3C),
> and as such the DIV with the voting form in it is not displayed.

This makes me wonder.  Is this combination of HTML and Javascript with
layered DHTML an efficient approach to rendering this page?  If it is,
then the only failure is that it should have been tested with Netscape.

I would not be surprised, however, if this was an attempt to exploit a
known defect in a competitors product to create incompatibilities.

Something along the lines of "Let's see, what does Netscape break on
displaying... Oh, let's layer DHTML on a Javascript page and truck with
the visibility object attributes... OOOhhh-- Broken As Designed"

Or, "We know that our boot code has this hex value at this offset, so
let's make a hard-to-find, encrypted test to verify that."

Or, "Our Instant messenger client responds to this malformed request
with this error message.  Send one of those to everyone who connects,
and ignore the wrong responses" (it's not just Microsoft)

--Joe

-- 
IBM's vision is apparently to make IBM hardware "scream with Microsoft 
software" --The Register,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/990927-000003.html

I have visions of screaming with (at and about) Microsoft software, too.