[daten]

There may be lots of reasons to disable javascript or not have it available at all such as security policies, bandwidth restrictions, limited hardware devices or other things you haven't anticipated.

I think it depends on what content you're providing and which users you want to reach.

I've seen text-only blogs that involve javascript in their visual design and cannot be read without it. I've also seen websites where the site navigation links are rendered by javascript. In both cases the sites are inaccessible to non-javascript users.

In my opinion if you can provide the same content without requiring active scripting, you should. If you're providing an interactive experience that can't be achieved without scripting at least be aware that you're limiting your user base. Even if users have scripting available but disabled by choice, they may decide that your content is not worth enabling scripting for.

I'm also concerned that technical users who disable javascript by choice might not frequent a site like "yahoo" as much as non-technical users. I'm curious if a more neutral but still popular site would have a larger percentage of non-javascript visitors.

[michaelchisari]

Very good response, I agree that the base functionality should exist without Javascript, and I would assume that most who disable it are willing to forego bells and whistles, but will still use your site if the basics work. This also ties into best practices of having Javascript which degrades properly.