Re: Bug 8404 -- taking it to the lists

Tab Atkins Jr., Wed, 2 Dec 2009 15:53:20 -0600:
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Leif Halvard Silli:
>> The spec clearly says that <figure> is not meant for *all* annotated
>> "illustrations, diagrams, photos, code listings" either. But only for
>> those that hypothetically could have been removed from the document
>> without affecting "the flow of the document". If the text says "See
>> this figure: [figure]", then that is not hypothetically possible,
>> unless you also add a second hypothesis: "... if the text had
>> hypothetically been rewritten" ...
> 
> No, it says that <figure "can thus be used" for such things.  It is
> not saying "can only be used" or similar.  It's presenting a usage
> example to ground the previous definition in reality and make it easy
> to understand.

If you say so ... However, assuming that Ian eats his own dog food, 
then:

]]
The dfn element represents the defining instance of a term. The 
paragraph, description list group, or section that is the nearest 
ancestor of the dfn element must also contain the definition(s) for the 
term given by the dfn element.
[[

And <code>figure</code> is defined in the heading element of the figure 
section: [1]

]]
<h4 id="the-figure-element"><span class="secno">4.8.1 </span>The 
<dfn><code>figure</code></dfn> element</h4>
[[

So the draft support you in your assertion that the first paragraph is 
_the_ definition.

>> Btw, not many e-mail message ago, you used "could be moved away" as
>> proof that you had found examples that constituted a figure: [1]
>> 
>> ]]
>> In all of these cases the figures match
>> exactly with what the spec says - they are part of the document, but
>> could be moved away, perhaps into an appendix, without affecting the
>> meaning or flow of the document.
>> [[
> 
> Indeed.  I don't believe I've contradicted myself; at no point did I
> indicate that this was the *only* criterion for <figure>.  As I said

Of course it is not the only criterion. But it is not an optional 
criterion. This "could have been removed from the document" thing 
exemplify what it means that the figure is supposed to be 
self-contained.

> in my previous message, it's a *common* attribute shared by
> <figure>-appropriate content, not a require one.

I speak about HTML 5 draft figures. They must be self-contained. And 
figures found in books are also self-contained. That they have captions 
is an important aspect of what make them self-contained.

Btw - again: No one wants to touch this once more, it seems, but Flickr 
was touted as _the_ figure use case in our past discussions. It strikes 
me that image captions are used in very different way from the way 
captions in academic figure caption are used. What we think of as 
photo/image captions would perhaps best be placed inside the "content" 
of a "figure" - not in its caption.

[1] 
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/text-level-semantics.html#the-figure-element

-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 23:13:13 UTC