> From: Nick Lo > I'm curious if and how you are all using the address tag. [snip] > However, the specs above don't make it fully clear if what > I'm doing is > wrong or right. The phrase "to supply contact information for a > document or a major part of a document" seems to rule out it's most > common use on a contact page as strictly speaking that's usually > contact info for an organisation. > > Surely <address> simply applies as a block element to ANY address, > however it then also seems unclear as to how to format the address > within that block.
Address is another half-baked, not completely thought out element, in my opinion. It's fluffy and lacks consistent internal structure definition to be truly useful - so some people just use lots of line breaks (and, it could be argued, in this context <br /> is actually semantic, as the explicit break can be seen as an essential part of the address itself, rather than simply a presentational feature). At the same time, its definition is extremely limited in that it must, according to spec, refer to the current document or section. In your specific case, I'd say the use of address is right, as you're providing contact information for the particular section, which talks about the Tasmania branch. Effectively, I wouldn't worry too much about how *exactly* the semantics of address are being followed...once again, it's a badly thought out element, whose definition is both too vague in its structure and too overly specific in its intended application. If you use it, go ahead as per your example...but I would actually question its usefulness. (ok, I *can* imagine some kind of semantic spider collecting meta information on web pages on the fly and looking for addresses on each page to associate with the current document...but I doubt this would be feasible, as there's no way to associate an address explicitly with only a section of a document - unless you go by its container / parent) My GBP 0.02, anyway, Patrick ________________________________ Patrick H. Lauke Webmaster / University of Salford http://www.salford.ac.uk ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
