- From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:25:06 -0700
- To: Shelley Powers <shelley.just@gmail.com>
- Cc: HTMLWG WG <public-html@w3.org>
Thank you for submitting this Change Proposal. It has been recorded on the issue status page: http://dev.w3.org/html5/status/issue-status.html#ISSUE-089 Regards, Maciej On Mar 26, 2010, at 12:06 PM, Shelley Powers wrote: > (Any document references contained in this Change Proposal are > specific to the March 4th Draft) > > Summary > > Remove Section 4.13 Common Idioms completely from the HTML5 > specification. > > Rationale > > Currently, the Idioms section[1] contains suggested markup and CSS to > create a web page tag cloud, a conversation, and footnotes. This > section is only suggested markup: there are no author or > implementation conformance requirements, no new attributes or elements > introduced, and no changes to either HTML/XHTML syntax, or the DOM. It > is nothing more than the HTML5 Editor's suggestion about what people > can use. > > According to the HTML5 Editor, Ian Hickson, the rationale[2] given for > keeping this section is: > > This section was added at the request of authors who wanted to > know what the spec suggested for the topics it mentions. Therefore > removing it would be doing authors a disservice, and authors take > priority. > > > I checked in email archives for both WhatWG and the W3C, and can find > no author requests for including this material. I did find questions > that people asked on the WhatWG email list about recommendations of > syntax to use, and scattered requests for a new dialog element and > something specific to footers, but none resulted in additional > elements/attributes. [3]. Asking for new elements or advice on how to > use the new HTML5 syntax is a different thing than asking that > recommended markup use be included in the HTML5 specification. > > What is the purpose of this section? If it was created specifically in > response to people asking for a dialog or footnote element, a better > approach would be to provide a detailed rationale for why such > requests were refused, and then point people to this when asked again. > If people disagree, we have a Decision process in place where they can > escalate the item to an issue and provide a change proposal. Providing > a how-to section is not the way to basically tell people, "No". > > In addition, there can be no author or implementation conformance > tests for the section. The suggestions are just that, suggestions. A > person is just as welcome to ignore the suggestions, as not. Yet by > being included in the HTML5 specification, there's a real risk of such > suggestions being codified as requirements—rather than help authors, > such suggestions could end up causing problems for authors. > > As an example of the problem of including this type of material in the > specification, there have been discussions about dialog markup[4], > supposedly related to the HTML WG deprecating the use of the dl > element for dialog. The use of the dl to mark up dialog, though, was > only a suggestion made in the HTML4 specification, in a manner very > similar to what we now have in Section 4.13. How can this group > deprecate that which was never anything more than a suggestion? > > If the use of dl in HTML4 was nothing more than a suggestion, and we > don't want to encourage such use in the future, then don't repeat the > suggestion in HTML5. End of story. If people want to continue using > dl, OK. If people don't, well, that's OK too. No interoperability or > other problem is introduced if people use different markup. > > A better approach is for markup for a specific purpose to occur > organically, becoming a best practice over time. We've seen this > happen with menus. There is no requirement that menus be unordered > lists—it is a best practice that grew over time, to the point where we > rarely see web page menus now that aren't unordered lists. And if > there are people who prefer to use another markup? That's fine, too. > > Details > > Remove Section 4.13 and any references to it. As an ancillary > suggestion, I would also strongly recommend removing the note in the > dl element section that states the following: > > Note: The dl element is inappropriate for marking up dialogue. > Examples of how to mark up dialogue are shown below. > > > It's not up to us to tell people what markup to use for what, aside > from there being a rationale for providing such a guideline. Unless > we're planning on making the use of dl for dialog non-conforming, in > addition to making another use of markup conforming for dialog, and > providing a good rationale for doing both, we should just drop any > reference to dialog markup. Let the market determine best practice. > > Impact > > Positive > > Removing this section prevents possible future confusion about what is > a requirement, and what is one suggestion out of the pool of possible > suggestions. This change also ensures that the best markup to use for > specific purposes is allowed to develop organically, and the best > practices emerge naturally. > > Negative > > Change requires Editor time to implement within the specification. > > Risks > > By removing this text from the document, someone unfamiliar with past > discussions about dialog and footnote elements may ask for such > elements in the future. The risk can be offset if they are directed > to the past discussions. If they persist in wanting these elements, > they should be encouraged to submit a bug, and push the item through > the Decision Process. Future requests can then be directed to the > formally recorded rationale for rejecting a special purpose dialog and > footnote elements. > > References > > > [1] http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/interactive-elements.html#common-idioms-without-dedicated-elements > > [2] http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8401 > > [3] http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2008-October/016556.html > > [4] http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2006-October/007576.html >
Received on Saturday, 27 March 2010 21:25:40 UTC