Re: Proposing <indent> vs. <blockquote>

Dao Gottwald wrote:
> Yes. I don't think it's a valid reason for a new element.
Well let me simply explicitly disagree with you.

>> Can you be more specific?
> http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ProposedDesignPrinciples
> "markup that expresses semantics is usually preferred to purely 
> presentational markup" -- So you can't deprecate a semantic element in 
> favor of a presentational one.
I was not asking to deprecate <blockquote>. It still have significant 
value.  But it is very often misused simple to gain an indent which is 
what I was proposing.
> "HTML Strikes a balance between semantic expressiveness and practical 
> usefulness." -- Explicitly removing semantics can't be considered as a 
> balance. (I neither think <indent> would be useful.)
I wasn't proposing removing semantics. I was proposing adding an element 
with reduced semantics that could be used when another would often be 
misused.

Another alternate would be to provide a @type attribute that would 
provide a set of defined types and allow user defined values just like 
@rel on the <link> element.  This could add semantics.
>> Did I say that?  (Asked another way, since when do *browsers* 
>> generally recognize semantics in markup?)
> So you expect accessible browser X to recognize <indent class="quote"> 
> as a quote?
I didn't say that either. Why do you keep trying to attribute to me 
statements I did not make?
> I can't tell you the year, but certain browsers have to do that in 
> order to present content to disabled users. 
Have to do what?
> It can also be important for software apart from browsers, like search 
> engines.
Important how?

=========

Alexander Graf wrote:
> +1
>
> Indenting is presentational and blockquote is about
> semantics. Mixing the two or providing an <indent>
> element in the semantic markup is just plain wrong.
+1 to my proposal or Dao's objection?

=========

Brad Fults wrote:
> I can't think of a single use case where an <indent> element would be
> a better representation of content than contemporary HTML elements
> styled with CSS.
Can you please provide me an example of both an <indent> and an 
alternate HTML element that would be styled with CSS?  And please do it 
with inline CSS styling as people who write HTML in blog posts and in 
comments on blogs and when posting to forums.
> Any incoherencies in the box model support in different browsers are
> only temporary and will be eradicated in the coming months/years. 
Forgive me for being skeptical, but I believe you are being hopelessly 
over-optimistic on this count.
> In any case, bugs in current implementations of reasonable specs are
> certainly no reason to introduce entirely new elements only to get
> around the bugs.
The reality is that indentation is an extremely common use-case, and 
HTML proper does not support indentation without carrying potentially 
improper semantics. Simplifying a common use case is a very good reason 
to provide an element.

FYI, my primary concern is for the casual HTML author such as mentioned 
above; for these people brevity of expression is extremely important.  
If you don't give them brevity in the "correct" way to do it, they'll 
use the "incorrect" way as it makes their life easier.

-- 
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org
http://atlanta-web.org - http://t.oolicio.us

Received on Thursday, 12 April 2007 01:52:53 UTC