3 ms·

It seems...redundant? The goal of HTML5 is not to include every conceivable tag in its specification, but to provide a common platform that rendering clients ca

It seems...redundant? The goal of HTML5 is not to include every conceivable tag in its specification, but to provide a common platform that rendering clients can all agree that "yeah, this describes the content, so render This Semantic Content in This Uniform Way." If you want a disclaimer, put it in a paragraph tag with the text "disclaimer" enclosed within an emphasis tag. I don't understand how enclosing a disclaimer inside of a special tag makes any difference to a search engine (which is really what "the semantic web" is intended for). Cory Doctorow's short essay entitled Metacrap (http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm) cuts right to the heart of this idea, as he talks about the problems with semantic markup.

TheThomas 17y ago
The purpose of the semantic web is parsing of documents in general, not JUST search engine parsing of documents. A disclosure tag would enable services such as aggregators (which the author mentions specifically), to deal with disclosures consistently. Given the recently raised legal implications surrounding this issue, it sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
- pixelbath 17y ago
  I understand your and the original author's intention for the tag, but I think the author is operating under several flawed assumptions. Portability: The author mentions the original disclaimer text being lost with a site's content being aggregated. How would adding a new tag change this? As happens now, some aggregators will choose to take this information, some will not, and the disclosure text may or may not be lost anyway. The use of tags do not confer control over how content is presented. Separation: I can agree with this on the merit of semantics, and it speaks to the data-centric part of my brain. But while the logical part of my brain says "yes" to semantically describing the content, it still seems like a "pet" tag to have. The pool of available tags should not be made even larger, in my opinion. May as well just have rant, parody, cartoon-reference, and lolcat tags while we're at it (lolcats are even, I would argue, more ubiquitous than disclosures). Style: If I understand the author's intention correctly here, he is stating that marking up a disclosure would make the writer more apt to create styling for it? If the author is implying that designers skip styling a disclosure because it's not marked up correctly, or that a disclosure is more difficult to mark up than other portions of a site, then I disagree with this assertion. Given the legal ramifications of providing or not providing a disclosure, you're better off focusing on the disclosure content than how it's marked up.
scott_s 17y ago
I liked Metacrap so much, I think you should submit it on its own. (But remember to note it's from 2001!)

TheThomas 17y ago

The purpose of the semantic web is parsing of documents in general, not JUST search engine parsing of documents. A disclosure tag would enable services such as aggregators (which the author mentions specifically), to deal with disclosures consistently. Given the recently raised legal implications surrounding this issue, it sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

pixelbath 17y ago
I understand your and the original author's intention for the tag, but I think the author is operating under several flawed assumptions. Portability: The author mentions the original disclaimer text being lost with a site's content being aggregated. How would adding a new tag change this? As happens now, some aggregators will choose to take this information, some will not, and the disclosure text may or may not be lost anyway. The use of tags do not confer control over how content is presented. Separation: I can agree with this on the merit of semantics, and it speaks to the data-centric part of my brain. But while the logical part of my brain says "yes" to semantically describing the content, it still seems like a "pet" tag to have. The pool of available tags should not be made even larger, in my opinion. May as well just have rant, parody, cartoon-reference, and lolcat tags while we're at it (lolcats are even, I would argue, more ubiquitous than disclosures). Style: If I understand the author's intention correctly here, he is stating that marking up a disclosure would make the writer more apt to create styling for it? If the author is implying that designers skip styling a disclosure because it's not marked up correctly, or that a disclosure is more difficult to mark up than other portions of a site, then I disagree with this assertion. Given the legal ramifications of providing or not providing a disclosure, you're better off focusing on the disclosure content than how it's marked up.

scott_s 17y ago

I liked Metacrap so much, I think you should submit it on its own. (But remember to note it's from 2001!)