Re: Using <p> elements purely as containers of phrasing elements? Semantic or not?

Hello,

about:
>A paragraph is typically a run of phrasing content that
>forms a block of text with one or more sentences that discuss a
> particular topic, as in typography, but can also be used for more general
> thematic grouping. For instance, an address is also a paragraph, as is a
> part of a form, a byline, or a stanza in a poem.

In a previous draft years ago for example it defined is as a container for 
prose, excluding explictly poetry.
Indeed as discussed already years ago, the p element does not
provide the structure to markup the typical structure for most types of
poems, it is simply a container for prose without any further substructure.
One can see, the descriptions change and do not neccessarily always
fit very well to previous (X)HTML recommendations or to best practice
for authors.
Basically a paragraph contains a closed chain of thought, for another
one use another paragraph - this does not exclude the usage within
forms to contain inputs or in a footer to contain a collection of links, if
they form such a chain of thought - maybe in the discussed example with 
the links in the footer this is questionable, but is basically the 
interpretation of the author respectively the chain of thought of the author, 
that can put it together to one paragraph, this may have influence on the
intended interpretation of this collection - one cannot move one link 
outside the paragraph without disturbing the intended interpretation of the
author.

Basically we can see, that the current HTML5 draft has indeed sometimes
the tendency to confuse semantical meanings of elements. 
One should not rely on this draft, in case semantics matters for an author.
But to do it better, there is for example RDFa - there are already 
recommendations for XHTML+RDFa and a draft for the usage with HTML5 
as well.
Alternatively of course if XHTML is used, one can extend it with other 
formats, that have the semantical meanings, missing in (X)HTML currently.
But often, at least for prose, what is already available with XHTML, HTML4
or the HTML5 draft is already pretty useful, if one ignores several details in
the HTML5 draft for best practice. A speciality of the HTML5 draft are
'willful violations' of other recommendations.  Following this spirit, it 
should be no problem to ignore several redefinitions or meanders of HTML5
as well ;o)


Olaf

Received on Wednesday, 8 May 2013 09:54:11 UTC