[Bug 12417] HTML5 is missing attribute for specifying translatability of content

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12417

Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |REOPENED
         Resolution|WONTFIX                     |

--- Comment #7 from Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz> 2011-06-29 14:52:37 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #6)

> Using class="notranslate" isn't an abuse as far as I can tell.

I don't think so. The class attribute is primarly aimed as a hook for CSS.
Currently HTML5 spec doesn't provide mechanism for defining some class values
as reserved for special use -- it would be very bad design to have some special
values recognized in place where user is supposed to be free to choose any
identifier.

Moreover similar usage of class attribute by Microformats was subject to critic
in past and lead to creation of RDFa and Microdata.

> This seems like a feature that would get only narrow use. Is it really worth
> adding to the language?

I don't think so, otherwise I wouldn't ask for it. More and more web content is
produced by translation - either machine or human, and such non-translatability
tag can vastly improve precision of translation. 

> It seems like the ideal solution would be a new language subtag, frankly.

This was discussed before. Translatability is orthogonal information to
language information, so it doesn't make sense to tangle it into single value.

> Rationale: there's already a solution,

Usage of class attribute has several drawbacks and it's abuse of this
attribute.

> a better solution might be to use a new
> language subtag,

Nope.

> and it's not clear a solution is actually needed.

It is clear that a solution is actually needed. Try to speak with people from
localization industry.

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Received on Wednesday, 29 June 2011 14:52:41 UTC