[whatwg] 'Main Part of the Content' Idiom

Mon Jun 7 02:13:34 PDT 2010

> But wouldn't we create a situation where the main content tag is misused
> and essentially then we'd recreate the situation with <body>?
>

IMHO you can't stop tags from being misused, and that goes for any tag.

What I am taking about is that it is upside down to expect honest people to
define everything except the main content. Pedagogically and
methodologically. Main content is main content, the most important to
define. That should be the starting point for the structure.

Not all html-developing pros have a consciousness when it comes to writing
correct mark-up and the non-pros just want to publish their content. One of
the points of html5 is to make it easier to "do the right thing"
mark-up-wise, to be structured and in standards compliance.

The simplest tutorial on html5 authoring should be: Getting doctype and
charset right, html, head, body. Then define main content. Finished. Ready
to be indexed.

For the following tutorials, mark up the rest of the structure (if you can
be bothered/have the time/stamina/lust) learning all of the structural tags.
Then add all the bits and bobs that are not necessarily part of any
definable structure, finding some suitable tag for that gallery of lolcats
that is popping up when you hover a link. Many people interested in just
publishing their content will have dropped off by now, not really paying
attention to the correct tags as long as it works on the screen...

...bu at least the main content (as defined by the author) can be reached,
indexed, sorted or stacked by machines.

All the best
/Daniel
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