[whatwg] <comment> element in HTML5 Spec?

[Richard Summers]

Thanks for the feedback guys, really appreciate it.

Using <article> elements within other <article> elements feels a bit like
we'd just be replacing <div> for <article>, it seems to remove some of the
logical distinction between different types of content.

As the use-case would potentially be huge (previously stated impact to
Blogs/Message Boards/News outlets), is there any more mileage in perhaps
using a <feedback> (or similar) element, as suggested by Bruce Hyslop?

A <feedback>,or similar, (<response>?) element would distinguish content as
a response to an article, and therefore denote that it serves a different
purpose to the main content in the <article> element.

Thoughts?

Rich


On 13/12/2010 19:23, "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Richard Summers
> <Richard.Summers at bbc.co.uk> wrote:
>> Hi gang,
>> 
>> I wonder if anyone can help me...
>> 
>> I attended  great talk today by Bruce Lawson from Opera about HTML5. I was
>> wondering, is there any plan to implement a <comment> element within the
>> HTML5 spec? I¹m 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.
>> 
>> This would mean huge implications for all the blogs out there, and the
>> increasing number of commenting systems on News outlets.
>> 
>> Cool, let me know if this has already been covered, or if it¹s not a good
>> idea, why? :)
> 
> The idea is potentially interesting.  Right now, the correct way to
> mark up comments is to just put each in an <article> of their own (as
> each is a piece of independent content).
> 
> What benefits could be brought along by instead using <comment>?  I
> can think of a few potential benefits:
> 
> 1. Differentiating between the main article and user-generated content
> in response (you bring this up).  Would this be useful for search
> engines?  I'm not sure.  Would it be useful to weight comment content
> differently from article content?  Perhaps weight links in comments
> less than links in the rest of the page?
> 
> 2. Providing a bit more information to screen-readers that may
> navigate by headings or sections, to make it easier to skip to or over
> the comments on a post.
> 
> 3. Make the authoring pattern a bit more obvious - rather than having
> to learn that it's okay and recommended to nest <article>s like that,
> authors could just naturally gravitate towards using <article> and
> <comment> together.
> 
> One thing to note - <comment> has already been used by IE6 and earlier
> as an alternative to the <!-- --> syntax for HTML comments.  They
> apparently stopped supporting this in IE7, though (I can confirm that
> it no longer does anything special in IE8), so we probably don't have
> to worry about it.  No other browser does anything special for it, it
> seems, so the compat impact is apparently small enough to be ignored.
> 
> ~TJ


http://www.bbc.co.uk/
This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated.
If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system.
Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender immediately.
Please note that the BBC monitors e-mails sent or received.
Further communication will signify your consent to this.