Re: keep conformance objective (detailed review of section 1. Introduction)

Geoffrey Sneddon wrote:
> 
> 
> On 30 Aug 2007, at 23:24, Dan Connolly wrote:
> 
>>
>> The draft says:
>>
>> "Conformance checkers are exempt from detecting errors that require
>> interpretation of the author's intent for example, while a document is
>> non-conforming if the content of a blockquote element is not a quote,
>> conformance checkers do not have to check that blockquote elements only
>> contain quoted material"
>>
>> I don't think the HTML marketplace is well-served by
>> a notion of conformance that depends on author's intent.
>> Please change the draft so that document conformance does not
>> depend on author's intent at all.
> 
> This makes it impossible to require semantic elements to be used for 
> their semantics. This would allow me to do something like <h1>This is 
> nice large text, which isn't a header</h1> in a conformant HTML 5 
> document. We need to require things like this, even if it is impossible 
> to check these electronically.

Indeed. For example, I think we should not constrain ourselves to use 
weaker language describing the type of content appropriate for the <h1> 
element than the fact that it is only allowed to contain inline-level 
elements, especially given that failing to follow the first of these 
rules is likely to be more harmful to the user experience than failing 
to follow the second.

If we require a term for documents that pass the subset of conformance 
constraints that are machine checkable, may I suggest "valid". The draft 
defines a "HTML5 validator" as a mechanical conformance checker for 
HTML5 documents. The term "valid" is also in common usage to indicate 
that a document has passed automated conformance checking.


-- 
"Mixed up signals
Bullet train
People snuffed out in the brutal rain"
--Conner Oberst

Received on Friday, 31 August 2007 23:36:54 UTC