Re: Emphasizing STRIKE

On Feb 9, 2008 1:30 AM, Lee Kowalkowski <lee.kowalkowski@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Surely any purely presentational element would be inaccessible in the
> same way as visual styling.  You won't be able to avoid including the
> actual status as content (completed/closed/invalid/inactive).  So how
> does strike do nicely?

An analogy. I'd like to tell you about an arrangement of atoms I've
seen out our house a few times. It's sort of pocket sized and green.
This is the equivalent of span+css, and I find it helpful not at all
(except as a last resort). Unfortunately I don't know the exact name
of the atom arrangement, and I don't want to confuse anyone by using
the "presentational" label of "frog". Because that would be wrong and
inaccessible. I mean, it could be any one of a number of species of
frogs. Safer to refer to it as atoms really. Better in the long run
for everyone. If you can't be specific, say nothing at all.

I don't know if that example will help explain how I apply semantics.
I see the elements of HTML laid out in a classification tree, with
generic stuff (like span) grouping special purpose elements like cite,
em and del. Presentational elements (b, i, strike - if we had it) are
in between. I try to capture as much meaning as possible in the
document itself, using the vocabulary HTML provides. And if a
presentational element is the closest match, then I'm glad to use
them.

ps: yes I know presentational elements are prone to
cultural/internationalisation risks. I use @lang where I can there,
and as many others have said, RDFa can make this unambiguous
regardless of which element is used.

cheers
Ben

Received on Saturday, 9 February 2008 06:27:18 UTC