[whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom

Fri Jun 4 09:39:56 PDT 2010

I am not advocating ad-tags. The idea of globally structuring content on the
web is very appealing, it would make it easier for a lot of things and a lot
of people. Let's do it!
...but I can't see it happening where <body> would be main content + ads +
anything there is not a sensible tag for + anything a
lazy/stressed/unconscious author didn't tag otherwise. Let's just have a
main content tag or a strong main content strategy.

Thanks
/Daniel

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Ashley Sheridan <ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk>wrote:

>  On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 18:03 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote:
>
> Some websites are very crowded. I have no particular example. Blogs and
> easily accessible CMS's, people trying to make a buck from excessive
> advertising on their site, people cramming a lot of info/screen unit.
> Companies too, old media: http://www.aftonbladet.se/ (major Swedish paper,
> watch your eyes) . <body> will hold a lot of stuff that is not main content,
> other content will spill over into <body> (unless there is a conscious
> author, and vast use of <aside>).
>
>  It should be easy for authors to define main content. It s a pedagogical
> issue, where authors not too concerned with standards compliance, should
> have an easy escape of at least defining the most important on the site.
>
>
>
>  Thanks
>
>  /Daniel
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Ashley Sheridan <ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
>   On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 17:05 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote:
>
> If i view the html-web as it is now, inside <body> there are so much
> irrelevant content (where else to put it?). In order for <body> to be the
> main content, there has to be tags for everything else. This will be very
> hard for authors to implement (I am talking real world, amateur,
> do-it-yourself, stressed professionals). It is IMHO very beautiful
> code-wise, and organisationally, to state that everything in <body> is main
> content, but it will not benefit a structurally marked-up web.
>
>
> Thanks
> /Daniel
>
> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ashley Sheridan <ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 16:27 +0200, Daniel Persson wrote:
>
> I am the one posting the question on the help list. To me, the lack of
> html5 definition of main content, ie body copy in paper publishing, is a big
> mistake. Imagine the amount of sites where "everything else" includes a lot
> of unimportant extra, or peripheral, content. Content which is not
> necessarily hierarchically legible by a machine. Getting authors to be
> disciplined about defining main content is more important than being
> disciplined about <nav>, <footer>, <header>, <section> etc, in order not to
> negate the meaning of html5 structural mark-up.
>
>
> Suggestion <bodycopy>... or, preferred, <bread>.
>
>
> /Daniel
>
> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Smylers <Smylers at stripey.com> wrote:
>
> The HTML5 spec should define how to mark up the main content on a page
> (even if the answer is "by omission"). This is something that many
> authors ask about, the latest example being today's thread on the help
> mailing list:
> http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/help-whatwg.org/2010-June/000561.html
>
> Please could this be added to the 'idioms' section, perhaps giving
> examples of when <article> or <section> might be appropriate as well as
> one in which the main content is simply that which isn't in <header>,
> <aside>, etc.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Smylers
> --
> http://twitter.com/Smylers2
>
>
>
>
>
> It's my understanding that everything within the <body> tag is considered
> body content, and the new <header> and <footer> tags, etc, are just there to
> give more meaning about the type of body content.
>
>   Thanks,
> Ash
> http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   The fact that there is so much irrelevant content inside the <body> tag
> is because some people consider that body content. Do you have a more
> specific example of this?
>
>
>
>   Thanks,
> Ash
> http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>
> I believe there was a proposal for an <advert> tag purely for adverts (I
> don't remember where I heard it) but it wasn't a realistic idea. If we could
> easily identify content we didn't want to see, and could strip it out before
> it even got to our browser, what incentive would people have to use it if
> the adverts are their only source of revenue? As such, it's not very
> feasible to distinguish between different types of content, and even if
> there were tags, a lot of people wouldn't use them because it would have a
> negative impact.
>
>
>   Thanks,
> Ash
> http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
>
>
>
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