[html5] Using <section> and <h1> ? Theoretical?

[Andrew J Roazen]

As someone coding websites in a university setting, I find the idea of <section> interesting but its corollary of restarting a heading hierarchy confusing. All existing UAs including AT expect a document to be hierarchical and <section> is not somehow a new form of object or <iframe> where every hierarchy starts over from the top.

<section> and <article> exist to make portions of a webpage easier to be consumed as semantic blocks. The problem here is that the spec wants the blocks to be autonomous while remaining part of the greater whole.

Let's compromise. <section data-headerstart="3"> could inform a syndicator that outside the flow of the containing document, <h3> is functionally the top-level header, <h4> is <h2>, etc. This puts metadata where it belongs, and leaves authoring the rest of the document without problems.
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