[whatwg] contenteditable, <em> and <strong>

[Nicholas Shanks]

Having come in to this conversation half way, I'd like to give my  
opinions. In the following 'default style' means in the UAs style  
declarations for all documents of the language.

There should be three emphasis elements:

<em>  Increases emphatic semantics by one level. *No* default  
rendering style for visual media, default rendering for other media  
not specified.

<i> Equivalent semantics to <em>. Default rendering style for visual  
media is a language-dependant alternative glyph set of the same font  
family and weight (e.g. italic/курсив, oblique, カタカナ).  
Default rendering style for other media not specified (at least the  
same as <em>).

<b> Equivalent semantics to <em>. Default rendering style for visual  
media is the same font family and glyph collection, but higher  
weight. Default rendering style for other media not specified (at  
least the same as <em>, perhaps louder for aural).

The <strong> element is deprecated, replaced by nested levels of <em>  
or it's visual-specific variants.

Thus where visual presentation is important, <i> and <b> can be used  
semantically (they are equivalent) and <em> ignored. Where visual  
presentation is not important, <em> can be used without concern for  
what <i> should sound like.
The basic point is that <em> has no default rendering style,  
discouraging it's misuse for "i want italic text and people tell me  
<i> is bad these days, so i'll use <em>".

- Nicholas.
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