Hi John! (Or Rand.)
I hadn't heard of the <comment> tag from IE before, and I've been
authoring HTML since 1995. So I don't think it would be confusing,
certainly not more so than any of the new definitions for <b>, <i>, or
any of the other repurposed tags. As you say, it would allow robots to
distinguish <comment>s from the <article>s that they relate to; and it
would be easier to style them.
<comment> elements could be used to refer to any comment added to a blog
post, article or discussion forum. You could call it something else,
like <post>, but this would be more confusing I think, since they're
called "comments" everywhere on web pages ("Post a comment", "Add a
comment" "Login or sign up to post comments", facebook "Like - Comment -
Share", etc., etc.). I use Drupal a lot as well (apparently 2% of the
world's websites now run on Drupal) and comments are a core feature, as
they are of any community site.
Shaun
On 2011-09-05 5:41 AM, Rand McRanderson wrote:
I could say from a robots perspective, a comment tag might be useful since
users sometimes want the option to view comments but not necessarily that as a
default.
For example many blogs/cmses offer a comment feed, also many news articles will
have a default of no comments with a trigger to show comments. Also consider
Discus as a model where comments and content are separated.
But I think from an author's perspective a "comment" tag would be confusing (they might
think this is a revival of the ie method). The "commentary" tag might work, though it is
a long tag + I feel like commentary implies something longer and more formal than a comment on the
web. However, I can't think of any intuitive, more concise tag names.
- John Thomas
----- Reply message -----
From: whatwg-requ...@lists.whatwg.org
Date: Sun, Sep 4, 2011 3:08 pm
Subject: whatwg Digest, Vol 90, Issue 5
To:<whatwg@lists.whatwg.org>
Send whatwg mailing list submissions to
whatwg@lists.whatwg.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.whatwg.org/listinfo.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
whatwg-requ...@lists.whatwg.org
You can reach the person managing the list at
whatwg-ow...@lists.whatwg.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of whatwg digest..."
When replying to digest messages, please please PLEASE update the subject line
so it isn't the digest subject line.
Today's Topics:
1.<comment> and<ad> elements (Shaun Moss)
2. Re:<comment> and<ad> elements (Jukka K. Korpela)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 16:14:40 +1000
From: Shaun Moss<sh...@astromultimedia.com>
To: whatwg@lists.whatwg.org
Subject: [whatwg]<comment> and<ad> elements
Message-ID:<4e631750.4030...@astromultimedia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hi all
I've joined this list to put forward the argument that there should be
elements for<comment> and<ad> included in the HTML5 spec.
These are both extremely common features of many web pages; I would say
at least as common as "article". At present there is no obvious semantic
element for comments and ads. To use<article>,<section> or<aside> is
a kludge at best.
I would love to hear people's thoughts on this idea, as I'm sure it
would have been discussed before. Please also let me know the process
for submitting a formal proposal to the WHATWG or the W3C about this.
I'm the founder and CEO of IWDA (International Web Development Academy),
and currently writing a course in HTML5.
Thanks,
Shaun
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:23:09 +0300
From: "Jukka K. Korpela"<jkorp...@cs.tut.fi>
To: whatwg<whatwg@lists.whatwg.org>
Subject: Re: [whatwg]<comment> and<ad> elements
Message-ID:<4e63c20d.6090...@cs.tut.fi>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
4.9.2011 9:14, Shaun Moss wrote:
I've joined this list to put forward the argument that there should be
elements for<comment> and<ad> included in the HTML5 spec.
IE recognized<comment> and ignored it in display, so it was like a
comment declaration (<!-- ... -->). It seems that they dropped support
at some stage (perhaps in IE 7). So maybe the old effect and usage would
not disturb much, if you wanted to define a completely different
semantic meaning for it. I guess what you mean is semantics like 'the
content of this element is a commentary' (perhaps with a for=...
attribute to indicate what it is a comment on?). But if introduced, I'd
still call it<commentary>.
These are both extremely common features of many web pages;
I have no strong feelings about this, but I don't think commonness is
sufficient for introducing a markup element. For example, almost all
HTML documents contain verbs, and yet nobody has proposed a<verb>
element. Just ease of writing isn't really a good motive, especially
since any new element would have the problem that some relevant browsers
do not even let you style an element unknown to them - for example, if
you wish to style<article>, you need to teach it to IE with a little
JavaScript. It's simpler and safer to keep using<div class=article> for
some years, no matter what people might write in the specs.
There's a real argument in favor of<article>: it lets robots detect
pieces that might be eligible for syndication. What would<comment> be
useful for?
For<ad>, there's the obvious potential usage of setting
ad { display: none !important }
in a user style sheet. I don't think this possibility would make<ad>
popular among authors.
