[whatwg] Re: About XHTML 2.0

[Mikko Rantalainen]

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Sat, 21 May 2005, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> 
>>Why doens't SECTION suffice? They are sections separated by decoration. 
>>At least, that is how it appeals to me.
> 
> They're not really sections. The chapter is the section, these are 
> paragraphs together in the same chapter, with a divider between some of 
> the paragraphs.
> 
> I read a lot of fiction books and when I come across a "* * *" it reads to 
> me like a paragraph, saying "Meanwhile, in a different part of the 
> universe:"; it doesn't read as "end section. new section:".

I read the "* * *" part exactly the same way. And I consider your 
quoted text to be the header for that sub-section even though it's 
omitted from the output. I feel that the correct markup to use would be

<section><!-- chapter starts here -->
<h>Yet another chapter</h>
<section><!-- 1st point of view, really a subsection -->
<h class="undisclosed">In the Jack's basement</h>
...
</section>
<section><!-- presentation adds "* * *" here -->
<h class="undisclosed">Meanwhile in the Bill's room</h>
...
</section>
</section><!-- chapter ends here -->

In my opinion, this is the correct sematics for the content. To 
increase excitement for the reader, some of the content is hidden 
during the presentation. If you feel that hiding the information is 
part of the semantics in this case (arguably that may be true), just 
drop all the <h> elements with class "undisclosed" above.

I think this is an example of why an <h> element shouldn't be 
required inside a <section> element.

IMHO.

> To put it another way, sections are things that you can put a title to. 
> There's no title you can put to a group of paragraphs separated from other 
> groups of paragraphs in the same chapter of a work of fiction, in my 
> experience. It's just the same chapter, with the narrative exploring 
> different characters or scenes.

I think you can always put a title to a group of paragrahps. It's 
just that sometimes (often?) you decide to leave it out for brevity 
/ clarity / excitement / whatever.

-- 
Mikko