[whatwg] <di>? Please?

[Hugh Guiney]

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 5:07 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
>> Then why is <section> in the spec?
>
> To make it easier to move subsections around without having to change all
> the <h5>s to <h4>s and so forth.

That's it? So the fact that it provides explicit grouping and styling
are unintentional side-effects? I don't think I've come across a
single person or article discussing <section>, in the time since its
introduction, ever even mention rearranging subsections as a benefit
at all, let alone the *primary* benefit. That's not even mentioned in
the spec itself…

Furthermore, for h*, the spec provides examples of semantically
equivalent document structures, one with <section>s and one without,
concluding:

> Authors might prefer the former style for its terseness, or the latter style for its convenience in the face of heavy editing; which is besty [sic] is purely an issue of preferred authoring style.

If the decision to use <section> or not is purely an issue of
preferred authoring style, what makes <di> any different? Why is in
inappropriate to have a stopgap grouping element for <dl> while CSSWG
works on a syntax for pseudo-grouping (if they even decide to do so),
yet perfectly fine for sectioning content?