Re: 'HTML 5' and some poem markup?

aloha, ian!

1) a stanza isn't a paragraph, nor is a verse -- if they were, they'd 
be called paragraphs -- line breaks carry no semantic meaning -- 
why not a containing element that indicates a line of poetry, much 
as <LI> and </LI> indicate the beginning and end of a list item?

2) PRE does not express any meaningful semantics, nor does it lend 
structure -- other than the visual illusion of structure -- to the text 
contained in a PRE container...

3) i'm VERY uneasy with your the "classical poem" example you cited, 
as it is used to illustrate the contentious claim that

quote
Examples where the image is purely decorative despite being relevant 
would include things like a photo of the Black Rock City landscape in a 
blog post about an event at Burning Man, or an image of a painting 
inspired by a poem, on a page reciting that poem. The following snippet 
shows an example of the latter case (only the first verse is included in 
this snippet):
unquote

why should those processing the poem non-visually be bereft of a 
description of the accompanying illustration?  obviously, the 
illustration captures an artist's conception of the "lady of shalott", 
which could aid an individual's understanding of the poem, and which 
could enhance the readers understanding of the cross-fertilization of 
poetry and art in a particular era and a particular style...

i fail to comprehend why an illustration such as this should be null alt 
texted and why it should validate without a descriptor, in particular, 
a long description of the painting -- not only those who cannot see 
may need a description of the painting, but also those with color 
blindness and those with an extremely restricted viewport who may 
need guidance through the illustration...

if the illustration isn't worthy of description, then it isn't worthy of 
being included in the first place -- one cannot, as the draft currently
does, classify this image as quote A purely decorative image that doesn't 
add any information but is still specific to the surrounding content 
unquote, as the example you cited is NOT a purely decorative image, but 
an interpretation of the poem it is being used to illustrate -- 
therefore, it DEMANDS both a terse and a long description...

gregory.
-------------------------------------------------------------
SELF-EVIDENT, adj.  Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
                    -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
-------------------------------------------------------------
    Gregory J. Rosmaita: oedipus@hicom.net
         Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/
Oedipus' Online Complex: http://my.opera.com/oedipus
-------------------------------------------------------------

Received on Friday, 5 October 2007 20:40:08 UTC