I agree with that sentiment. Green-colored text and strange fonts were popular when MySpace was popular. This is something from the past, not the present or future.
The present and future require semantic elements (such as <blockquote/>) and attributes (such as those used by RDFa). Cheers, Andreas Peter Saint-Andre: > On 9/27/12 5:32 PM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote: > >> On 7/31/12 6:43 PM, Mathieu Pasquet wrote: > >>> I am also not sure about the <strong/> and <blockquote/> >>> elements: they are shown as a recommended element to support >>> (7.8), but the business rules (8.7) states that they should >>> not be used, but rather <span/> or <p/> with appropriate style >>> attributes. Is it only for backward compatibility, then? > >> I think we need a broader discussion of this topic, since it >> caused so much controversy when we first defined XHTML-IM. I will >> review the old list discussion and more modern opinions on this >> topic, then post to the list again. > > Here is the relevant business rule: > > ### > > The use of structural elements is NOT RECOMMENDED where > presentational styles are desired, which is why very few structural > elements are specified herein. Implementations SHOULD use > appropriate 'style' attributes (e.g., <span style='font-weight: > bold'>this is bold</span> and <p style='margin-left: 5%'>this is > indented</p>) rather than XHTML structural elements (e.g., > <strong/> and <blockquote/>) wherever possible. > > ### > > That now seems wrongheaded to me. Sure, *if* you just want a > pretty presentation (say, a bit of green-colored text), then > 'style' attributes are appropriate. However, it seems to me that if > you want to quote something or emphasize something then using > <blockquote/> or <em/> is the right thing to do. > > (I also wonder why we don't support <q/> for inline quotation...) > > Peter
