[whatwg] <comment> element in HTML5 Spec?

[Ashley Sheridan]

On Mon, 2010-12-13 at 19:54 +0000, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 6:49 PM, Richard Summers
> <Richard.Summers at bbc.co.uk> wrote:
> > I was
> > wondering, is there any plan to implement a <comment> element within the
> > HTML5 spec?
> 
> "comment" isn't an available element name for historical reasons:
> 
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms535229(v=vs.85).aspx
> 
> > I’m suggesting this as a complimentary element to the <article>
> > element.
> >
> > I believe it could be useful as it could be used to differentiate between
> > audience generated content and article-author generated content. This could
> > enable search engines to differentiate between the 2 types of content, and
> > weigh them differently in different searches. Semantically and structurally,
> > something like this seems to make sense.
> 
> Search engines wanting to do this could distinguish between "article"
> instances and sub-"article" instances:
> 
> "When article elements are nested, the inner article elements
> represent articles that are in principle related to the contents of
> the outer article. For instance, a blog entry on a site that accepts
> user-submitted comments could represent the comments as article
> elements nested within the article element for the blog entry."
> 
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/sections.html#the-article-element
> 
> The "address" element could be used to distinguish contributors:
> 
> "The address element represents the contact information for its
> nearest article or body element ancestor."
> 
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/sections.html#the-address-element
> 
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis


Would <aside> be more contextually accurate in the case of
user-generated comments? I was of the understanding that <aside>
elements were content that was related to the main <article> but not
necessarily part of it. It wouldn't always make sense in every case (on
a forum for example the comments *are* the content) but for something
like a blog where the comments are secondary to the main article and the
article would still make sense with the comments stripped entirely
(except for fringe cases where the author of the main text added edits
after and in response to a comment, although the preference in the main
seems to be to do this sort of thing in a comment itself)

Does it even make sense to use <aside> for this, or would it cause
problems with content ingestion by content readers and search engines,
like diluting author <asides>?

Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk


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