[Bug 16026] New: This is general feedback on the overall standard, as far as I understand it. This is feedback from an average web user who knows a decent amount of fundamental HTML (primarily self-taught) who regularly uses it to varying degrees on various forums, blogs

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=16026

           Summary: This is general feedback on the overall standard, as
                    far as I understand it.  This is feedback from an
                    average web user who knows a decent amount of
                    fundamental HTML (primarily self-taught) who regularly
                    uses it to varying degrees on various forums, blogs
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Other
               URL: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#top
        OS/Version: other
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P3
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: contributor@whatwg.org
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org


Specification: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html
Multipage: http://www.whatwg.org/C#top
Complete: http://www.whatwg.org/c#top

Comment:
This is general feedback on the overall standard, as far as I understand it. 
This is feedback from an average web user who knows a decent amount of
fundamental HTML (primarily self-taught) who regularly uses it to varying
degrees on various forums, blogs, and personal webspace.  Quite simply put,
this standard seems in many ways to be unnecessarily biased towards
integration with CSS, and is considerably more complicated and thus incredibly
inaccessible to most average casual users of the web.  For example, some of
the formatting tags rendered obsolete such as "center" (or according to some
sources, "u", though I could not find mention of it in this document) are
extremely commonly used in blogging and on personal webspace.  In the context
in which many web users use these formatting tags is when they specifically
want to format items WITHOUT or irregardless to CSS; the point is generally to
make an EXCEPTION to a style, rather than to make a style.  However, nearly
all of this document as well as what is reported about the proposed seems to 
focus nearly exclusively on defining styles.  It appears that it will be
highly inaccessible to most casual users, where the current html standard has
many tags that are simple and highly intuitive.  I also wonder what will
happen to the many blogging and other similar websites in which users have
numerous entries that are already written making extensive use of
now-deprecated formatting.

I'm not certain whether this feedback will be truly heard, let along
considered, but what I am able to understand of this is quite alarming, and I
hope that you can take these concerns into consideration.  As usage of the
internet becomes increasingly prevalent, standards such as HTML ought to
become /simpler/ whenever possible, rather than more obfuscated.

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Received on Monday, 20 February 2012 10:21:15 UTC