[whatwg] Annotating structured data that HTML has no semanticsfor

Scripts are not copy-paste resilient but scripts are advanced content; they
are expected to be created, maintained and understood by experienced Web
developers.  It is provably impossible to tell what a particular script is
doing, except by means of a thorough and exhaustive research that is not
guaranteed to succeed.  And execution of scripts is disabled in many
environments.

CSS declarations are used to convey presentation; breaking CSS should not
affect the ability to understand the content.  WHATWG considers CSS issues
out of scope, except for admitting the applicability of CSS.

OTOH, losing semantics because of prefix reassignment in RDFa can cause
serious harm.

If you regard CURIE prefixes as fixed, you need a central registry to avoid
clashes.  Avoiding a central registry is an explicit requirement AFAIK.

There is nothing wrong with pasting just a part of another page; in fact,
this is often intended.  The cases of erroneous clipping are obvious; the
cases of inconsistent prefix declarations are not.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is a requirement that HTML content
is required to be copy-paste-resilient wherever that is feasible.  Few Web
page publishers use paste, agreed; however, they often encourage the readers
to paste content nowadays, and the readers do it a lot.

Link rot has been considered an issue with RDFa; my post, if nothing else,
can be viewed as a consideration.  While I am not an RDFa VIP, my
consideration does not get any less real because of that.

Best regards,
Chris

Received on Friday, 15 May 2009 06:14:44 UTC