[whatwg] article/section/details naming/definition problems

Judson Collier judson at judsoncollier.com
Wed Sep 16 08:47:35 PDT 2009


I really don't see the relevency of <article> as anything other than an blog
post or article- this is the obvious definition. If you are going to keep
article, diverting the definition to coments and widgets is way off the
beaten path. It'd be cool to see some type of user generated content tag,
but that's a bit superflous.

However, one single specialized <section> tag begs for *more *specialized
<section> tags. Keep that in mind.

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Jeremy Keith <jeremy at adactio.com> wrote:

> Divya wrote:
>
>> this is my understanding of the differences between <section>
>> and <article>, forgive me if I am not rigorous in my usage of English:
>>
>> 1. section to "cut" or "section" different parts of the layout of the
>> webpage
>>
>
> No. This is what <div> is for.



>
> <section> is for enclosing related content. <article> is for enclosing
> related content *that is also independent*.
>
> 2. article is used for each similar content, each blog post in a set of (1
>> or more) blog posts, each user member avatar in a set of user member
>> avatars, each product in a set of products.
>>
>
> Not necessarily. If you would use <article> for a page of 10 blog posts,
> you should also use <article> for a page containing only one of those blog
> posts. The context isn't as important as the content. If the content *could*
> stand alone, then you are supposed to use <article>. Whether or not the
> contact actually *is* standing alone (in the current document) doesn't
> matter.
>
> 3. articles always occur within a section except in rare occasions when
>> there is nothing else other than the specific article on the page as
>> content.
>>
>
> No. There is no correlation.
>
> * <articles> do not need to be nested within a <section>. They can be
> children of the <body> element, for example (the body element isn't
> sectioning content although it is a sectioning root).
> * <articles> can be nested within an <article>. The spec currently advises
> doing this for blog comments (even though it's questionable whether or not
> those comments "stand alone").
> * <section>s can be nested within an <article>. Different sections of a
> news story or blog post, for example.
> * <section>s can nested within a <section>.
>
> The usecase that leaps to me is:
>> HTML 4:
>>
>> <div class="maincolumn">
>> <div class="item">
>> News entry 1
>> </div>
>> <div class="item">
>> News entry 2
>> </div>
>> </div>
>>
>> HTML 5:
>> <section class="maincolumn">
>> <article>
>> News entry 1
>> </article>
>> <article>
>> News entry 2
>> </article>
>> </section>
>>
>
> This should probably be:
>
> <div class="maincolumn">
> <article>
> News entry 1
> </article>
> <article>
> News entry 2
> </article>
> </div>
>
> I often use <div class="item"> to mark up the smallest large unit of
>> content
>> that is repeatable and my understanding is that <article> would be a good
>> replacement of that.
>>
>
> Only if the content is independent. Otherwise use <div> (or <section> if
> the content is related).
>
>
> --
> Jeremy Keith
>
> a d a c t i o
>
> http://adactio.com/
>
>
>


-- 
Judson Collier
http://judsoncollier.com/
http://twitter.com/judsoncollier
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