Nested a elements validate okay?

When validating this page:

   http://git.blender.org/gitweb/gitweb.cgi/blender.git/commit/master

using validator.w3.org it reports no problems (a "Passed" result).   
And yet the page contains this sequence (simplified to  start/end tags  
and descriptive text):

<a>message for current master commit
   <span>
     <span>
       <a>master</a>
     </span>
   </span>
</a>

If you select the show source option on the validator, the above  
sequence appears on line 28 in the source input listing.

According to http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#prohibitions a elements may  
not contain other a elements at any depth.  Neither does HTML allow  
nesting of a elements.

Is this a known limitation of the validation service?

Received on Saturday, 28 December 2013 08:28:55 UTC