RE: QandA : A proposed enhancement to HTML

One can argue that there is a need for a distinct element for handling
Q&A instead of using the <dl> element for that type of content.  I don't
agree with that argument, but I can see its validity.  However, there
are severe problems with your proposal.

First, as you have proposed it, there is no way of applying other
 relevant tags such as <em> to portions of either the question or
the answer. There is also no way of determining the MIME types
of the alternate answer keywords, and with four different URI
keywords that would require four seperate type attributes.

Second, as search engines long ago discovered, relying on authors
to provide accurate and relevant keywords depends upon them
not playing tricks to get their site referred to.  That is why most search
engines pay scant attention to keywords.  As such, any argument
that relies upon search engines processing a keyword argument
is largely bogus.

I said largely, not entirely, since if a search engine limits its field
of endeavor to only a domain where accurate keywords can be
assured, such as the search engine for a corporate intranet,
then a case can  be made for a keyword attribute (or element),
but it should be added to more than just this one element in that
case.  This also applies to the other metainfo attributes your
proposed element has.

Received on Friday, 16 January 2004 13:35:24 UTC