- From: Dr. Olaf Hoffmann <Dr.O.Hoffmann@gmx.de>
- Date: Wed, 8 May 2013 09:57:17 +0100
- To: public-html-comments@w3.org, ian@invigoreight.com
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