Re: WD-xhtml2-20030506: <qst>ions and <ans>wers

> I actually think this is an excellent model and would be a useful addition
> to the spec. Note that using the qa wrapper means you can have multiple
> questions with 1 answer if you like, or multiple answers to one question -
> both are valid cases and here, semantically valid. You could unfortunately
> end up with multiple of both, which a confused HTML'er may do - is it
> possible to specify in the DTD that it's 1+ of one but 1 of the other OR 1
of one
> and 1+ of the other?

And what is the benefit of this element group? Like formerly suggested,
introduce sentence, word, and letter elements (how nice), firstname/lastname
elements to pronounce names (wonderful feature for becoming parents, e.g. by a
catalogue) or maybe an imperative element group to assign orders -- they are
all 'useful'.

I think you can make a language as complicated as possible, so there must be
a border I definitely see here.

> This would provide a lot of interesting opportunities for UAs, including
> easily "Googling" the answers to questions, and validating a document to
> find there's a question you haven't answered ("Error: qa element without
at
> least 1 ans element").

First, I see a special problem: For me, a question ain't answered by any
response, but by the value of the answer. There has to be a mechanism allowing
search engines to rank the anwer's value (and even the importance of the
corresponding question).

Second, there might be more useful elements to be introduced than <qst />
and <ans /> (like I associate it with <firstname />, <lastname />, although
they are nuts, too).

And last but not least -- I don't feel Google needs any help to improve its
search. And who wants to find an answer, will find it without these elements.


 Jens.


> 
> I agree these ought to be block elements.
> 
> > This begins to get messy, but I'd suggest that the
> > structure here is really:
> 
> <qa>
>   <qst>.....?</qst>
>   <ans>
>   <qa>
>     <qst>Did...that?</qst>
>     <ans>....</ans>
>   </qa>
>   </ans>
> </qa>
> 
> I actually think this is an excellent model and would be a useful addition
> to the spec. Note that using the qa wrapper means you can have multiple
> questions with 1 answer if you like, or multiple answers to one question -
> both are valid cases and here, semantically valid. You could unfortunately
> end up with multiple of both, which a confused HTML'er may do - is it
> possible to specify in the DTD that it's 1+ of one but 1 of the other OR 1
of one
> and 1+ of the other?
> 
> This would provide a lot of interesting opportunities for UAs, including
> easily "Googling" the answers to questions, and validating a document to
> find there's a question you haven't answered ("Error: qa element without
at
> least 1 ans element").
> 
> -Chris "SoopahMan" Moschini
> http://hiveminds.info/
> http://soopahman.com/
> 


-- 
Jens Meiert

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Received on Thursday, 24 July 2003 03:15:38 UTC