[Bug 11562] address tag definition has no relation to it's name

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=11562

--- Comment #2 from arieh glazer <arieh.glazer@gmail.com> 2010-12-16 17:18:53 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> (In reply to comment #0) 
> > 1. HTML needs a tag to specify a location, as this is a common meaningful
> > information.
> 
> Why?

as I said - it seems like a very common information type, that IMO should be
markupable.


> > It is absurd that the only way for us as developers do this is by
> > 3rd party data structures, sch as microformats or microdata.
> 
> Why?

mostly because both MF and MD are not official, and thus are not as reliable as
a true markup tag that is standard, and they are not a part of HTML. It feels
strange that such a generic content would need to use "outside" markup.

> > 3. The specification tells us that the tag should be used for contact
> > information. That has nothing to do with the word "address", which makes the
> > document very vague. A "contact" tag would be much more appropriate.
> 
> What is the ultimate difference between "contact information" and "an address
> or
> location, virtual or physical", in your view?

In most discussions I've participated on the subject, such markup as:
<li class='game'>
   <h3>Some1 vs Some2</h3>
  <address>Some city</address>
</li>
was considered off the spec. As I mentioned, I too find the definition so vague
that it hardly matters, but then why is "contact information" a better
definition than "address or location" - which is much more suited for a tag
named "address"


> > Another important point is that the phrase "contact information" is a little
> > too vague. It can easily stretch to a point where any existing address can be
> > considered a contact information.
> 
> The key is not that it is "contact information" but that it is a contact
> information for an author responsible for the document or section.

first of all, the new specs say only "The address element represents contact
information." http://dev.w3.org/html5/markup/address.html
2nd of all - why is that type of information more generic and more suited than
a generic address. As I see it, it makes more sense that the tag should be used
as a generic address/contact info, rather than a very specific, less useful
"contact the owner of the document" tag (which can be expressed by many other
means, such as title, rel and other MF/MD which are for special cases
scenarios).
IMO, HTML should be as generic as possible, as to allow a large set of
different valid markups..


> > As a side note, I have seen the tag used as a location indicator on many
> > accounts,
> 
> Do you have data that it is used to mean "an address or
> location, virtual or physical" more often than contact information for authors?

Yes, as you can see with the example above. 

> > and have seen search engines recognize it as such.
> 
> Which search engines? Can you prove that they are recognizing it as a "an
> address or
> location, virtual or physical" as opposed to author contact information? In
> particular, how do you know they are recognizing the element rather than the
> contents of the element (i.e. just picking up on text that looks like a
> postcode or whatever)?

Obviously I have no such proof. It is as likely that they simply extract text
structures and analyze the raw text. But I have seen the tag used for other
situations (as mentioned above) and indexed properly throughout the years. In
fact, I only recently found out that I have been using it off the specs...
But even if we drop the above statement, I still feel my point is valid and
should at least be considered.

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Received on Thursday, 16 December 2010 17:18:55 UTC