` as a grouping element in `
`. See https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1937 and https://github.com/whatwg/html/pull/1945
-
-### Why are some presentational elements like ``, `` and `` still included?
-
-The inclusion of these elements is a largely pragmatic decision based upon their widespread usage, and their usefulness for use cases which are not covered by more specific elements.
-
-While there are a number of common use cases for italics which are covered by more specific elements, such as emphasis (em), citations (cite), definitions (dfn) and variables (var), there are many other use cases which are not covered well by these elements. For example, a taxonomic designation, a technical term, an idiomatic phrase from another language, a thought, or a ship name.
-
-Similarly, although a number of common use cases for bold text are also covered by more specific elements such as strong emphasis (strong), headings (h1-h6) or table headers (th); there are others which are not, such as key words in a document abstract or product names in a review.
-
-Some people argue that in such cases, the span element should be used with an appropriate class name and associated stylesheet. However, the b and i elements provide for a reasonable fallback styling in environments that don't support stylesheets or which do not render visually, such as screen readers, and they also provide some indication that the text is somehow distinct from its surrounding content.
-
-In essence, they convey distinct, though non-specific, semantics, which are to be determined by the reader in the context of their use. In other words, although they don't convey specific semantics by themselves, they indicate that that the content is somehow distinct from its surroundings and leaves the interpretation of the semantics up to the reader.
-
-This is further explained in the article [The `` and `` Elements](http://lachy.id.au/log/2007/05/b-and-i)
-
-Similarly, the small element is defined for content that is commonly typographically rendered in small print, and which often referred to as fine print. This could include copyright statements, disclaimers and other legal text commonly found at the end of a document.
-
-#### But they are PRESENTATIONAL!
-
-The problem with elements like `` isn't that they are _presentational_ per se, it's that they are media-dependent (they apply to visual browsers but not to speech browsers). While ``, `` and `` historically have been presentational, they are defined in a media-independent manner in HTML5. For example, `` corresponds to the really quickly spoken part at the end of radio advertisements.
-
-### The `` element should allow names of people to be marked up
-
-From what some have seen, `` is almost always used to mean "italics". More careful authors have used the element to mark up names and titles, and some people have gone out of their way to only mark up citations.
-
-So, we can't really decide what the element should be based on past practice, like we usually do.
-
-This leaves the question of what is the most useful use we can put the element to, if we keep it. The conclusion so far has been that the most useful use for `` is as an element to allow typographic control over titles, since those are often made italics, and that semantic is roughly close to what it meant in previous versions, and happens to match at least one of the common uses for the element. Generally, however, names and titles aren't typeset the same way, so making the element apply to both would lead to confusing typography.
-
-There are already many ways of marking up names already (e.g. the [hCard microformat](http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard), the microdata vCard vocabulary, `` and class names, etc), if you really need it.
+HTML allows `` as a grouping element in `
`. See [the `` specification](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/#the-dl-element) and [issue #1937](https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1937) wherein this was added.
### Where's the harm in adding...?
-Every feature we add to the Web platform has a cost:
+Every feature we add to the web platform has a cost:
* Implementation: someone has to write code for it in each browser
* Testing: someone has to write the tests to check the features is working
@@ -416,12 +377,42 @@ The plan to get the specs to converge again, such as it is, is to just do a bett
Here are some documents that detail the history of HTML:
-* [A feature history of the modern Web Platform](https://platform.html5.org/history/) (2003 onward) ([on GitHub](https://github.com/whatwg/platform.html5.org/blob/master/history/index.html))
+* [A feature history of the modern web platform](https://platform.html5.org/history/) (2003 onward) ([on GitHub](https://github.com/whatwg/platform.html5.org/blob/master/history/index.html))
* [HTML's timeline on the ESW wiki](http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/history) (1997 to 2008)
* [The history section in the HTML standard itself](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/introduction.html#history-2)
## Using HTML
+### Why are some presentational elements like ``, `` and `` still included?
+
+The inclusion of those elements is a largely pragmatic decision based upon their widespread usage, and their utility for cases which are not covered by more-specific elements.
+
+While there are a number of common use cases for italics which are covered by more-specific elements, such as emphasis (``), citations (``), definitions (``) and variables (``), there are many other use cases which are not covered well by these elements. For example: a taxonomic designation, a technical term, an idiomatic phrase from another language, a thought, or a ship name.
+
+Similarly, although a number of common use cases for bold text are also covered by more-specific elements, such as strong emphasis (``), headings (``-``) or table headers (`| `), there are others which are not, such as keywords in a document abstract or product names in a review.
+
+Some people argue that in such cases, the `` element should be used with an appropriate class name and associated stylesheet. However, the `` and `` elements provide for a reasonable fallback styling in environments that don't support stylesheets or which do not render visually, such as screen readers, and they also provide some indication that the text is somehow distinct from its surrounding content.
+
+In essence, the `` and `` elements convey distinct, though non-specific, semantics, which are to be determined by the reader in the context of their use. In other words, although they don't convey specific semantics by themselves, but instead they indicate that the content is somehow semantically distinct from its surroundings — leaving the interpretation of the semantics up to the reader.
+
+This is further explained in the article [The `` and `` Elements](http://lachy.id.au/log/2007/05/b-and-i).
+
+Similarly, the `` element is defined for content that is commonly typographically rendered in small print, and which is often referred to as "fine print"; that could include copyright statements, disclaimers and other legal text commonly found at the end of a document.
+
+#### But they are PRESENTATIONAL!
+
+The problem with elements like `` isn't that they are _presentational_ per se, it's that they are media-dependent (they apply to visual browsers but not to speech browsers). While ``, `` and `` historically have been presentational, they are defined in a media-independent manner in HTML5. For example, `` corresponds to the really quickly spoken part at the end of radio advertisements.
+
+### Why is the `` element only used to mark up titles, not names of people or other citations?
+
+From what some have seen, `` is almost always used to mean "italics". More careful authors have used the element to mark up names and titles, and some people have gone out of their way to only mark up citations.
+
+So, we can't really decide what the element should be based on past practice, like we usually do.
+
+This leaves the question of what is the most useful use we can put the element to, if we keep it. The conclusion so far has been that the most useful use for `` is as an element to allow typographic control over titles, since those are often made italics, and that semantic is roughly close to what it meant in previous versions, and happens to match at least one of the common uses for the element. Generally, however, names and titles aren't typeset the same way, so making the element apply to both would lead to confusing typography.
+
+There are already many ways of marking up names already (e.g. the [hCard microformat](http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard), the microdata vCard vocabulary, `` and class names, etc), if you really need it.
+
### Do you have any hints on how to use `` and `` and so on?
Some hopefully helpful hints:
@@ -435,8 +426,8 @@ Some hopefully helpful hints:
### What ever happened to...?
-The Web Forms 2.0 specification was folded into what is now the HTML specification.
+The Web Forms 2.0 specification was folded into what is now the HTML Standard.
The Web Controls 1.0 specification was overtaken by events and has been abandoned. Its problem space is mostly handled by ARIA and Web Components now.
-The DOM Parsing specification was abandoned by the WHATWG because the W3C was doing a better job of maintaining that specification. We do not want to cause confusion in the market place, so when another organisation writes a specification that covers the same technology as one of ours, we only continue to publish it if our version is technically superior.
+The DOM Parsing specification was abandoned by the WHATWG because the W3C was doing a better job of maintaining that specification. We do not want to cause confusion in the market place, so when another organization writes a specification that covers the same technology as one of ours, we only continue to publish it if our version is technically superior.
|