quote should be removed from test in H49, semantics of elements depending on doctype

Name: Detlev Fischer
Email: detlev.fischer@testkreis.de
Affiliation: 3needs
Document: TD
Item Number: H49
Part of Item: Tests
Comment Type: technical
Summary of Issue: quote should be removed from test in H49, semantics of elements depending on doctype
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
The test includes this check:

2.Check that appropriate semantic markup (such as em, strong, cite, blockquote, quote, sub, and sup) have been used to mark the text that conveys information through variations in text.


Proposed Change:
quote should be removed since it is not an element. Since screen reader support is poor and IE6 and 7 require CSS hacks to add quotes to q it may be better not to refer to q at all at the time being. After all, there seems to be consensus that inline quotes may also be indicated by using "..." so failing to use the q element should not fail the test.

Another question is whether there is a solid base right now to distinguish between proper and improper uses of the elements <i> and <b> which used to me presentational but are being given new  semantics in HTML 5. The same ios true for <cite> which is now likely to be restricted to titles in HTML5. The test of those elements would either require a check of doctype to differentiate between, and describe, legitimate usages, or not explicitly mention these elements so it is down to the evaluator to work out whether usage conforms to the chosen doctype.

Received on Thursday, 24 May 2012 07:59:25 UTC