Re: WD-xhtml2-20030506: <qst>ions and <ans>wers

Hi all,

I don't think the <qa> element is a bad idea per se, but I'm wondering if a
more generic associative/grouping element would be more useful. Essentially
it would be like a definition list, only it associates flow content with
flow content, instead of inline content with flow content. I'm thinking you
could use it for all sorts of things besides the question/answer list;
however, I can't immediately see many such potential usage cases. Where do
we have relations between flow? How about annotated text?

One issue, of course, is what the implied semantics of such an element
should be. Would it be commutative, or would the items in it have different
roles like in definition lists? That is, should the first item be the
"header" and the rest the "content," or should they be of equal
"importance"? Sorry about the lack of propery terminilogy here.

I haven't given this much consideration; it was just something that occured
to me as I read the discussion about <qa> and I thought you people might
want to investigate it further. One thing I do know is that I do not want
any element whose semantics are not clearly and thorougly defined, so keep
this out of there unless you can think of clear uses for it. (Obviously, I
don't need to tell you guys; I'm just covering my own back.)

Anyway, thank you for your time.


Regards,

Daniel Brockman
daniel@brockman.nu

Received on Friday, 25 July 2003 21:09:16 UTC