Talk:HTML element

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SMcCandlish (talk | contribs) at 01:43, 26 June 2018 (→‎Misuse (gross overuse) of syntax highlighting: r). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Nitrosyl bromide

At the top of the article it says "For the chemical compound, see Nitrosyl bromide". Why is this and what does that chemical have to do with HTML elements?109.149.80.240 (talk) 14:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It was added in July in this unexplained edit. There is no relationship between these two subjects (as far as I can tell). I'm removing it. Mindmatrix 15:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's presumably a paste from a past article on the <nobr> tag (not part of standard HTML, but quite widely used). Delete it, it's an irrelevance here. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I put in a more self-explanatory hatnote. There should be one because if you are search for the article on the chemical and type "nobr" instead of "NOBr" (the chemical formula for nitrosyl bromide) you end up on this page instead of the one you were looking for. -- Beland (talk) 15:24, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

text overprints box

Hitting CTRL+++++... to increase the text size in one's Firefox 22 browser causes some lines to overprint the box at the right... Jidanni (talk) 01:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • That's not a problem that is the fault of anyone except those that want to hit Ctrl++++++... If you've accidently done that and want to reset it to the "normal" font size so it fixes those issues, simply press Ctrl+0. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

List of "all" tags

The list of "all" tags needs to be updated:

  • B does not define bold text in HTML5.
  • DATA is missing.
  • HGROUP is no longer part of HTML5.
  • ISINDEX (and friends) is missing (since the table claims to include not only HTML5 tags...).
  • MAIN is missing.
  • SMALL doesn't define "smaller text" in HTML5.

If tags from 'obscure' specifications/drafts are to be listed as well, then there are a lot of missing elements: BANNER, TAB, FIG, OVERLAY, MATH, NOTE, FN (from HTML 3.0), DI (from XHTML 2.0), ... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 23:08, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted this section since it also appears to be a copyright violation. -- Beland (talk) 15:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Technical 13, I don't see where on developer.mozilla.org for example the phrase "Defines a comment" (from the first line of the table) appears. http://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp does not attribute any source, so if that table does exist on developer.mozilla.org under an attribution-required license, then w3schools.com has an unauthorized copy. It looks to me like the table is original to w3schools.com and is fully copyrighted by them. Though the content concerns the HTML 5 standard, just because that standard or its official documentation has a copyleft license doesn't mean any given book or web page about HTML 5 must also have a copyleft license. That would only be true in the case of substantial verbatim copying. -- Beland (talk) 18:21, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's the whole point, it is not suppose to be verbatim "Defines a comment", that would be my summary of The Importance of Correct HTML Commenting. The table doesn't need to exist, the information in the table just needs to be available on the multitude of different pages (each row in the table has its own page on MDN). I don't see any of the formatting and the tool doesn't find any of the exact wording on w3schools of which the content there is common knowledge to anyone in the HTML world and the source upon which it is defined (the legal [=Any&pub_date_type=any rfc] documents for HTML) is actually open source to all. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 18:43, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Copyright only attaches to the exact words used to express an idea, not to the idea itself. So if we agree that the specific words that w3schools.com put into their table were written by them, then the copyright on that table text belongs to w3schools. It looks like w3schools does not use an open license, so their specific words cannot be copied into Wikipedia in their entirety. -- Beland (talk) 21:46, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I've caught them in errors before, too.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:02, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The DL element

Regarding this edit by SMcCandlish (talk · contribs) from thirteen months ago. The phrase "and called an association list in early versions of HTML5" which was added to the parenthesis is troubling me. The cited source says "The dl element represents an association list consisting of zero or more name-value groups (a description list)", so it doesn't support the claim for early versions, nor does it imply that the structure is termed a description list in preference to an association list.

The version of HTML 5 that was approved as a W3C Recommendation on 28 October 2014 says exactly the same thing. It's no different in HTML 5.1: the latest published version of the Working Draft, 17 April 2015 and of the Nightly Editor's Draft, 23 March 2015 both use the same wording again. If we go right back to the earliest published versions of HTML 5, Working Draft 22 January 2008, it says "The dl element introduces an unordered association list consisting of zero or more name-value groups (a description list)"; the next published version (Working Draft 10 June 2008) says "The dl element introduces an association list consisting of zero or more name-value groups (a description list)" - that is, the word "unordered" was removed; and in the version after that (Working Draft 12 February 2009), the word "introduces" was replaced by "represents", and so it took on the present wording at that point. So it's not that it was "called an association list in early versions of HTML5" - it always has been called an association list in those versions of HTML5 that are readily available.

Therefore, I think that the first sentence of the paragraph should be simplified to

An association list (or description list) consisting of name–value groups[1] (known as a definition list prior to HTML5).[2]

References

  1. ^ "4.5 Grouping content — HTML5". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  2. ^ "Lists in HTML documents". HTML 4.01 Specification W3C Recommendation. 24 December 1999. 10.3 Definition lists: the DL, DT, and DD elements. Retrieved 2 May 2015.

notice the extra ref, for the wording of HTML 4.01. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:49, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Troubling" seems a bit hyperbolic. There's probably an easy way, e.g. with Archive.org, to dig up old versions of HTML5. The present version of the DL entry in the HTML5 spec says "The dl element represents a description list.", with no mention of "association list".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's a W3C Working Group Note, i.e. an abandoned project (see Ending Work on a Technical Report or Publishing a Working Group or Interest Group Note). But we shouldn't need an archive site: W3C have permalinks to all but the "Nightly editors draft" pages, and I gave some above. They're the ones with dates (formatted CCYYMMDD) in the URLs, like http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#the-dl There's a list up to and including 17 December 2012 at HTML5 W3C Candidate Recommendation 17 December 2012; there have been seven subsequent versions, finishing with HTML5 W3C Recommendation 28 October 2014. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: OK, though I would go with:
A description list (a.k.a. association list) consisting of name–value groups ...
Regardless of the order in which these terms appear in whatever version of whichever spec we're looking at, virtually everyone knows these as description lists (if not definition lists, which seems to be deprecated/abandoned terminology), and it corresponds to the names of the elements. Maybe they'll rename them to <al>, <at>, and <ad> someday, but I doubt it. :-) Changed "or" to "a.k.a.", since "or" can be ambiguous in such constructions (implying two different things instead of two names for the same thing). Not anticipating an objection, I stuck that in, with some more consistent citation formatting.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:59, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What about HTML5 tags?

The new layout tags in HTML5 are not present, nor are any other new HTML5 tags. Could someone please find and add them, or provide a reason why they are not here?

Also, I can't find the 

<mark>...</mark>

tag. Is it deprecated or nonstandard? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnAwesomeArticleEditor (talk • contribs) 21:43, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

 Done by me (a while ago). —AnAwesomeArticleEditor (talk
contribs) 02:44, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Article needs a lot of work

This article needs a lot of work. A large portion of it is written like a tech manual - so please see what Wikipedia is not. There is no intro. And this article is for writing about the topic based on sources. For the most part I don't see this happening here. Please, bring this into agreement with the WP:MOS. Steve Quinn (talk) 19:33, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Added a new section

I added a new section to the article entitled "Various elements". Feel free to revert if this is not acceptable. Steve Quinn (talk) 21:22, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Elements vs. tags

In this section is paragraph ""Elements" and "tags" are terms that are widely confused. HTML documents contain tags, but do not contain the elements. The elements are only generated after the parsing step, from these tags."

I really do not ever hear that. Please source that or delete. Every source I found talks the opposite:

I second that. This dubious claim has to be either properly sourced oder removed. It confuses users who wish to understand the difference between tags and elements. 2003:6:33B6:D895:B9A1:8144:44FD:DBB2 (talk) 15:11, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Move towards "List of HTML tags"

Some recent changes seem to be moving this article away from being a description of HTML elements, to being a list of all HTML tags. I see this as a very bad move. We do not need such a list: it is less encyclopedic and also duplicates far better primary sources already out there, such as the W3C and innumerable web tutorials (of varying quality). More importantly though, it dilutes the quality of this important article, which is on the concept of elements, rather than tags, and on their concept, rather than listing those defined. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:19, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So what are the criteria for inclusion/exclusion? - dcljr (talk) 17:39, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Being an encyclopedic article on the concept of the element, rather than duplicating any number of pre-existing sites by just listing tags, with no discussion of their meaning. The start of this article is useful, almost everything after §Lists (with a few exceptions) is just listcruft. I'm not averse to such a slab of repeated, unsourced listery, but it doesn't belong in this article. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:36, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is, if we're going to, say, warn editors against adding unnecessary information to the article, there should be a clear, logical guideline for them to follow. It seems that "theoretically" one could be promulgated in this case, it just hasn't been (AFAIK). - dcljr (talk) 02:57, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

American vs. British English spellings

I think we should use American English spellings throughout this article, because HTML uses American English (specifically the "color" attribute"). It looks silly to see color=colour in the article. —AnAwesomeArticleEditor (talk
contribs) 02:49, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And just because "you think it's silly" you've already twice changed the spellings in this article to US, even after being reverted? Andy Dingley (talk) 02:56, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What arguments do you have for leaving it as British English? —AnAwesomeArticleEditor (talk
contribs) 14:36, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I, too, am interested in whether there is any argument at all for using British English, other than personal preference. According to MOS:ARTCON, we should pick one variant and stick with it. There is an actual argument (whatever you think of it) for using American spelling; is there an actual argument for using British spelling? - dcljr (talk) 04:06, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ENGVAR exists to prevent pointless edit wars. An RfC should be used if a change is wanted. Johnuniq (talk) 04:38, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Invoking WP:ENGVAR doesn't magically resolve disputes. If it did, this would already be resolved. AFAICT, ENGVAR does not recommend using RfC's in place of normal talk page discussion, and that's what we are trying to do here. As for the characterization that "a change is wanted", the only "change" being "wanted" here is to pick a variety of English and stick with it. AFAICT this article has had mixed spelling (color/colour, etc.) for quite a while, and it was only very recently that editors have tried to standardize it to one variety (and then the other). (Although that may also have been done before, years ago, and the change didn't stick.) In other words, I don't think established convention can be the controlling factor here. OTOH, MOS:RETAIN says, "When no English variety has been established and discussion does not resolve the issue, use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety." In that case, it would be American English, since the original destubbification of this article seems to have used American English. Andy, what is your argument for preferring British spelling? - dcljr (talk) 07:34, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please just make the case to show that there is no established style, then make a case for what the style should be. If there is no agreement on the first point, the second is not relevant until a wider discussion (RfC) is underway. Johnuniq (talk) 07:54, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@dcljr - if you can show that the first non-stub version was clearly in US English, then I'm happy to go with that, per ENGVAR.
What I'm not happy about is edit-warring across ENGVAR, just because, "I think it's silly to use British English". Andy Dingley (talk) 10:10, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You are misrepresenting my argument. I said that was only one of the factors. The other, more important factor, is HTML's preference for American English. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and put back the American English notice on the talk page, because that seems to be what the consensus supports. —AnAwesomeArticleEditor (talk
contribs) 13:15, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In response to Johnuniq: Really? OK… consider the last version of the article attributed to you in the page history (as you reverted simple vandalism/test-editing): revision 816436305 of 21 December 2017. In that version, there are (by my count) 9 instances of "behavior" (including a section heading) and 3 of "behaviour"; 5 "color" (not counting mentions of the "color" HTML attribute) and 3 "colour"; 3 forms of the word "center" (not counting mentions of the "center" element) and no forms of the word "centre". Similar results can be found in many other revisions going back at least 2 years. For example, Andy Dingley's revision 729906336 of 15 July 2016 (also a revert) has 2 "behavior" (again, including section heading), 14 "behaviour", 3 "color", 3 "colour", 2 forms of "center", and 1 form of "centre". Even farher back, your (Johnuniq) revision 503906311 of 24 July 2012 (yet another revert — none of these cited reverts are changing varierties of English in the article, BTW) appears to have 6 "behavior", no "behaviour", 5 "color", no "colour", 3 forms of "center", and no forms of "centre" (thus, AFAICT, entirely American). (I'm sure I could find other revisions from years ago that have only British spelling of these words, although I didn't come across any in the handful of revisions I checked. The point is, there has been a lot of back and forth regarding spelling with little [or simply ineffective] effort put forth to keep the article consistent.) As for showing "that the first non-stub version was clearly in US English", as requested by User:Andy Dingley: as I linked to (as a diff) before, revision 3059657 of 4 April 2004 was the first major expansion of the article beyond a stub; it contains no "behavior" nor "behaviour", 1 "color", no "colour", 4 forms of "center", and none of "centre". If someone has other ideas for American–British differences to look for, go for it. (And finally, Johnuniq, regarding "[making] a case for what the style should be", AnAwesomeArticleEditor addressed that in his very first post in this discussion: HTML itself prefers American spelling over British. You may not feel that it's a very compelling argument, but in the light of all other evidence, it does seem to me to aid in tipping the scales toward American spelling.) - dcljr (talk) 06:59, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for looking into the matter, and that is much more helpful than the OP which is definitely not the way to establish a style. What HTML prefers would be largely irrelevant if the article used UK spellings consistently. It is ok to change a style where the subject matter warrants such a change, but doing that requires more than an ex cathedra announcement. Johnuniq (talk) 07:59, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Misuse (gross overuse) of syntax highlighting

An important consideration for mainspace in particular is that WP:MOS, like all professional-grade, formal-writing style guides, is dead-set against introducing extraneous stylization of any kind, and is minimalist for good reasons (especially MOS:Accessibility ones, but others as well, including MOS:TONE, WP:NOT#BLOG, and others.) Color is used sparingly and for limited purposes in Wikipedia prose. Same goes for other font effects (see MOS:TEXT); we don't even permit more than a few prescribed uses of boldface, and we avoid many text effect entirely, like underlining. (See also MOS:ICONS: We do not want decorative icons, dingbats, and emojis all over our articles, either.)

The HTML element article has pretty much forever been using markup like: '%block; and %inline; are groups within the HTML DTD that group elements as being either "block-level" or "inline".' It's unobtrusive, helpful, and what W3C and WHATWG actually recommend and intend.

We later started marking up the code blocks with the then-new <syntaxhighlight>. As long as it works properly (and it does have bugs, though I don't know if any are affecting this particular article), this is arguably helpful, in that it can make complex code easier to understand for the reader. (Honestly, I'd like to see an accessibility analysis of the color choices, but I presume on good faith that one has been done at some point.)

However, someone(s) since then have done something not helpful at all: they've gone around and put <syntaxhighlight> (directly or via the {{code}} or {{syntaxhighlight}} templates) around every single thing, in mid-sentence, where they can get it to do anything. This "colorize everything! woo hoo!" approach is causing distracting and potentially confusing outbursts of pointless color all over the place, and even producing sentences with grossly inconsistent markup, as in 'Lists with <ul><li> ... are %block; elements ...' This is not helpful to any readers, and is not an encyclopedic approach. It's just haphazard decoration for its own sake and needs to be undone. The point of syntax highlighting is to make syntax in blocks of code easy to parse; it is not a replacement for basic semantic HTML markup in prose, which is a simple and no more visually intrusive than it needs to be.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:25, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Checking the page history reveals that many of the changes you seem to be objecting to were introduced by User:Nøkkenbuer in a series of edits on June 1 and April 23–24. @SMcCandlish: do you want to revert/undo any of those edits, or discuss any of them with Nøkkenbuer? Because otherwise you're just asking no one in particular to do nothing in particular, and I don't think much is going to result from your comment. - dcljr (talk) 01:18, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I already have a thread open at User talk:Nøkkenbuer, and have raised the issue more broadly at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Misuse of code syntax highlighting. While I could just WP:BRD it here, might as well let the discussion play out. For all I know, consensus may say "Oh, we really want syntax highlighting applied as much as possible." Wouldn't bet on it, but there's no real hurry.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:43, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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