Re: 'email' element type

Jim Dabell wrote to <mailto:www-html@w3.org> on 8 April 2003 in "Re: 'email'
element type" (<mid:200304081736.51106.jim-www-html@jimdabell.com>):

> I don't consider it to be redundant. mailto hrefs are behavioural, an
> <email> element is also informational.

How is an 'email' element more informational than the presence of a "mailto"
URI?

> There is also functionality that can be added.  For example, I find it
> highly annoying to click on a link to email somebody, and come back a day
> later to find a bounce, letting me know that the person had obfuscated
> their email address (I don't always check, I don't feel I should anyway).

I agree that you should not have to check. Your user agent should allow
instant address verification with the SMTP VRFY command.

> If it were possible to mark up email addresses to let user-agents know that
> the contained address is obfuscated (e.g. obfuscated="true"), then my mail
> client could pop up a warning before sending.

I think that a better form for the attribute would be
    validity = "valid" | "obfuscated" | "example" | "invalid".

With either form, why limit the attribute to an e-mail-designating element
type? People can also obfuscate instant messaging addresses and HTTP
addresses.

> An abbreviation to <@> would be nice

And strictly forbidden in XML.

> but would be awkward when using CSS.

If you mean that writing selectors would be difficult, I must correct that
notion. The selector

    \@

would work, and that's three characters fewer than

    email


> I agree with Kevin - if any element can be a link now, is there any
> justification for keeping the <a> element as a "special" link container?

I don't see any. What does this have to do with the proposal for an
e-mail-designating element type?

> A <uri> element is also an interesting idea, but I don't feel it would be as
> functional as an <email> attribute for many uses (e.g. the obfuscated
> attribute mentioned above).

An obfuscation attribute can work with any element type. That dispatched, do
you have other compelling uses in mind?

-- 
Etan Wexler <mailto:ewexler@stickdog.com>

Received on Tuesday, 8 April 2003 20:06:22 UTC