Re: draft HTML5: Techniques for the provision of text alternatives

Tab Atkins Jr.:
> 2010/1/19 Dr. Olaf Hoffmann <Dr.O.Hoffmann@gmx.de>:
> > Well several members of the working group convinced me in the
> > previous discussions, that HTML5 (HyperText Markup Language Vesion 5)
> > is not the right place for poetry, literature or text, it cares about
> > other things  (I did not ask or look into details, about what else it
> > cares) - therefore it was suggested to use another language to markup
> > text or to use RDF(a) and a specific vocabulary.
>
> Could you point out where someone said this?  That sounds ridiculous,
> which makes it seem like there was some miscommunication at some
> point.
>
> ~TJ

If we continue to discuss this, we should change the topic, because
this is already far away both from the sample and from text alternatives
for images ;o)

Some responses are added in the wiki.
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/PoeticSemantics

Already the first response from Peter Krantz suggests to use XHTML2 or RDFa.
Unfortunately XHTML2 seems not to no option anymore, but RDFa seems to
be within reach now together with HTML5, if we assume that not all authors
want to use the current XHTML+RDFa recommendation, what is available
already know, independently from the fate of the HTML5 drafts. Unfortunately
XHTML+RDFa has no role attribute to simplify this approach a little bit.

Or Philip Taylor notes that '... the real answer is
that HTML of itself is not ideally suited to marking up poems,
but one /can/ fudge it (a) by overloading existing elements
and clarifying the nature of the overload through the
"class" (or *"role") attribute ...'
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Oct/0055.html

Or Jirka Kosek noted: ''
And there is also no markup for mathematical and chemical formulas, for
product lists, ... It is not possible to have elements for all in HTML
because that way HTML will end with several thousands of elements.
Concerns should be separated and if you need better markup for poems
then p/br then you can embed TEI poem markup inside HTML document
(assuming you can use XML serialization)."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Oct/0065.html

Karl Dubost suggested I should collect the vocabulary and set up the
wiki page with related information. Indeed I did. Up to know, it resulted in
another language to markup literature in general ;o)
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Oct/0077.html

Smylers: 'HTML is too rudimentary to mark up poems precisely -- among many
other things.'
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Feb/0392.html

Peter Krantz:
"Please see the discussion on RDFa which is suitable for
domain-specific markup: http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/PoeticSemantics

With RDFa you can create your own vocabulary (if none exists for
poetry) and extend other's if you need more detail.

HTML itself will never be able to incorporate elements with explicit
semantics for all domains."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Feb/0396.html


I think, there were some other comments at other places, partly
from members of the group, mainly with the intention to move
away such problems from HTML5 to an RDFa approach with
a not really exisiting vocabulary at the time, they suggested this.

Of course, it would be nice to be able to have proper markup for
poetry and prose in (X)HTML from my point of view, but finally there
are indeed other options now, but it should not be suggested to authors
to use improper elements to markup poetry and lyrics and other
types of literature, not covered by HTML5. And therefore samples
containing poetry need some advanced approach to be helpful and
not misleading for people reading the drafts.

Olaf

Received on Tuesday, 19 January 2010 18:03:46 UTC