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Great question. When the "Semantic Web" hype train rolled through back in the day, I asked the same question. I got a lot of hand-wavey answers about search eng

Great question. When the "Semantic Web" hype train rolled through back in the day, I asked the same question. I got a lot of hand-wavey answers about search engine understanding semantics of markup. Also if you use instead of you are a barbarian. In theory, more information would be easier for a language model to extract meaning from though.

ichik 3y ago
Indeed that's what comes to mind: it would make you life a bit easier if you're trying to do web scraping with content analysis. And that's what search engines are, I suppose.
AlienRobot 3y ago
Funny you mention that. I'm writing a plugin to replace Wordpress default markup for the ITALIC button, BOLD button and UNDERLINE button to , , and , instead of the nonsensical , , and it has by default. I feel so disappointed with all the hand-waviness I'm almost considering using the <big> tag for big text. The only thing stopping me is that I don't know if I'll get a penalty somewhere for using a deprecated tag.
- kstenerud 3y ago
 "em" and "strong" are locale and medium neutral ways to signal intent. For example, most non-Latin scripts don't have an italic form, but rather use a different mechanism to signal emphasis. As well, screen readers and even high-contrast views may not work well with such things as italic and bold, and need a different mechanism to signal emphasis and strong. Also, underline doesn't work for vertically oriented scripts, and is usually just another way to emphasize, which is why it was moved to styling instead.
 - AlienRobot 3y ago
 I understand, but honestly this is really not my problem. That's the problem of someone reading and writing non-Latin scripts. In my Latin scripts, I see bold and italic and underline all the time and obviously I need a way to mark these, since they have very well-defined textual semantics in the kind of script I'm working with. If these semantics don't apply to Japanese, for example, then just don't use and in Japanese? Make a <傍点> or <sideline> tag for Japanese that shows up in the Japanese version of Wordpress and other CMS's. Why would someone writing English have to think about how bold text looks like in Japanese? That makes no sense. Even for accessibility it makes no sense. As far as I know, screen readers don't even announce bold/italic/em/strong or them differently. And if they announced, I'd expect any italic text I ever write to be read out loud as "in italics..." not "in emphasis..." I genuinely can not understand the thought process that went into creating these tags. It's like they completely ignored the idea that text as a medium has its own layer of semantics and tried to skip over it. But this is just my personal opinion. In the end the objective facts are that and don't really do anything in the real world besides wasting more bytes than and , so there's exactly zero benefits in using them. I really wish someone would prove me wrong, though, hence this thread.
 - LukeBMM 3y ago
 As a (relatively, though age is catching up with my vision, admittedly) able-bodied Westerner who reads no other languages than English, I find this opinion shocking. Would paraphrasing your point as, "I don't think anyone who reads in any way other than the one I'm familiar with deserves knowledge," have a different impact, or does that seem ok to you, too?
 - AlienRobot 3y ago
 No. The correct paraphrase would be "I think you should recognize that text is different from speech and English is different from Japanese and welcome the diversity of media of knowledge instead of trying to make an one-size-fits-all solution for every method to convey information that the human body is capable of." Imagine if I had a markup language for voice synthesis. If I typed a word, the computer would say out loud that word. But I had tags like <whisper> and <yell> to change the volume of the computer voice, and <pausedly> and <quickly> to change its speed. These tags make no sense in the text medium, and yet their semantics are self-evident in speech. If authors had a way to mark up how their text should be voiced, perhaps they would mark them so. Who wouldn't love a real <sarcasm> tag for sarcastically voiced text? But HTML went the opposite way. Instead of providing more tools to let authors express themselves, they took every format of expression and dumped it in a single label.
 LukeBMM 3y ago
 Changing the context to voice markup doesn't in any way change or address the core point, which is that you really seem to be expressing that you only care about the way that you happen to consume text and therefore any other viewpoints are superfluous. Also that you're willing to go out of your way to create and publish a plugin to effectively sabotage anyone trying to do anything else. Of all the opinions someone could hold strongly, that's certainly one of them.
 AlienRobot 3y ago
 >you really seem to be expressing that you only care about the way that you happen to consume text No, I only care about the way I write text. If I'm writing an article and I want to make text bold, I don't want to waste my time having to come up with a deeper explanation about WHY should the text be bold. That's an obstacle in the creative process. I want bold text. Period. I don't want or , and I don't want a "bring attention to" element". I want bold. Can you say that EVERY SINGLE TIME I want bold text that will match the semantics of ? If that's true, then it shouldn't be called , it should be called <bold>. If that's not true, then one day I'll mark something as because I want bold text and it will be the incorrect tag for that text because of a semantic mismatch. In that case, what should I do? Should I just use or for my bold text? Are you telling me that every time I want bold text I'll have to make the conscious choice of deciding whether I should use a tag or a tag? Can you imagine the nightmare of making this work in a CMS like Wordpress? It would be much easier to just never use at all and just use for bold every time. If the only way to make sure you're using the semantics correctly is to just never use the tag at all, I say we just give up on this nonsense and use the tag which matches the semantics of what the person writing the text wants to convey.
- andrei_says_ 3y ago
 Just keep in mind that this will flag content on accessibility scans.
 - AlienRobot 3y ago
 What does this mean? What are accessibility scans, and why are they flagging content?
 - TomaszZielinski 3y ago
 Accessibility is a legal requirement in some jurisdictions. Here's a random article about the upcoming EU regulations: https://www.siteimprove.com/glossary/eu-web-accessibility-directive/ https://www.siteimprove.com/glossary/eu-web-accessibility-di... - they also have a site checker that performs an automated accessibility scan.
 - AlienRobot 3y ago
 As far as I know screen readers don't seem to differentiate between , , or [1]. If the checker flags this despite there being no actual effects in the real world, it would really make me doubtful about its accuracy... >Mainstream screen readers currently treat B/I tags identically to STRONG/EM tags. That is, they are ignored unless a user specifies that they be indicated. Some users report that announcing changes can be distracting. [1] https://accessibility.psu.edu/boldfacehtml/#:~:text=tags.%20That%20is%2C-,they%20are%20ignored,-unless%20a%20user https://accessibility.psu.edu/boldfacehtml/#:~:text=tags.%20...
 TomaszZielinski 3y ago
 That page also lists examples of semantic and visual uses of bold and italics, which sound pretty reasonable to me. As for it not being critical due to inconsistent screen reader support--it sounds like a chicken and egg problem. If developers don't use those tags consistently, then people using screen readers have hard time with them, and so screen readers adjust. In any case, if it doesn't hurt but can potentially help, I personally prefer to use semantic tags to convey the meaning and visual styles for pure visual effects.

ichik 3y ago

Indeed that's what comes to mind: it would make you life a bit easier if you're trying to do web scraping with content analysis. And that's what search engines are, I suppose.

AlienRobot 3y ago

Funny you mention that. I'm writing a plugin to replace Wordpress default markup for the ITALIC button, BOLD button and UNDERLINE button to , , and , instead of the nonsensical , , and it has by default. I feel so disappointed with all the hand-waviness I'm almost considering using the <big> tag for big text. The only thing stopping me is that I don't know if I'll get a penalty somewhere for using a deprecated tag.

kstenerud 3y ago
"em" and "strong" are locale and medium neutral ways to signal intent. For example, most non-Latin scripts don't have an italic form, but rather use a different mechanism to signal emphasis. As well, screen readers and even high-contrast views may not work well with such things as italic and bold, and need a different mechanism to signal emphasis and strong. Also, underline doesn't work for vertically oriented scripts, and is usually just another way to emphasize, which is why it was moved to styling instead.
- AlienRobot 3y ago
 I understand, but honestly this is really not my problem. That's the problem of someone reading and writing non-Latin scripts. In my Latin scripts, I see bold and italic and underline all the time and obviously I need a way to mark these, since they have very well-defined textual semantics in the kind of script I'm working with. If these semantics don't apply to Japanese, for example, then just don't use and in Japanese? Make a <傍点> or <sideline> tag for Japanese that shows up in the Japanese version of Wordpress and other CMS's. Why would someone writing English have to think about how bold text looks like in Japanese? That makes no sense. Even for accessibility it makes no sense. As far as I know, screen readers don't even announce bold/italic/em/strong or them differently. And if they announced, I'd expect any italic text I ever write to be read out loud as "in italics..." not "in emphasis..." I genuinely can not understand the thought process that went into creating these tags. It's like they completely ignored the idea that text as a medium has its own layer of semantics and tried to skip over it. But this is just my personal opinion. In the end the objective facts are that and don't really do anything in the real world besides wasting more bytes than and , so there's exactly zero benefits in using them. I really wish someone would prove me wrong, though, hence this thread.
 - LukeBMM 3y ago
 As a (relatively, though age is catching up with my vision, admittedly) able-bodied Westerner who reads no other languages than English, I find this opinion shocking. Would paraphrasing your point as, "I don't think anyone who reads in any way other than the one I'm familiar with deserves knowledge," have a different impact, or does that seem ok to you, too?
 - AlienRobot 3y ago
 No. The correct paraphrase would be "I think you should recognize that text is different from speech and English is different from Japanese and welcome the diversity of media of knowledge instead of trying to make an one-size-fits-all solution for every method to convey information that the human body is capable of." Imagine if I had a markup language for voice synthesis. If I typed a word, the computer would say out loud that word. But I had tags like <whisper> and <yell> to change the volume of the computer voice, and <pausedly> and <quickly> to change its speed. These tags make no sense in the text medium, and yet their semantics are self-evident in speech. If authors had a way to mark up how their text should be voiced, perhaps they would mark them so. Who wouldn't love a real <sarcasm> tag for sarcastically voiced text? But HTML went the opposite way. Instead of providing more tools to let authors express themselves, they took every format of expression and dumped it in a single label.
 - LukeBMM 3y ago
 Changing the context to voice markup doesn't in any way change or address the core point, which is that you really seem to be expressing that you only care about the way that you happen to consume text and therefore any other viewpoints are superfluous. Also that you're willing to go out of your way to create and publish a plugin to effectively sabotage anyone trying to do anything else. Of all the opinions someone could hold strongly, that's certainly one of them.
 AlienRobot 3y ago
 >you really seem to be expressing that you only care about the way that you happen to consume text No, I only care about the way I write text. If I'm writing an article and I want to make text bold, I don't want to waste my time having to come up with a deeper explanation about WHY should the text be bold. That's an obstacle in the creative process. I want bold text. Period. I don't want or , and I don't want a "bring attention to" element". I want bold. Can you say that EVERY SINGLE TIME I want bold text that will match the semantics of ? If that's true, then it shouldn't be called , it should be called <bold>. If that's not true, then one day I'll mark something as because I want bold text and it will be the incorrect tag for that text because of a semantic mismatch. In that case, what should I do? Should I just use or for my bold text? Are you telling me that every time I want bold text I'll have to make the conscious choice of deciding whether I should use a tag or a tag? Can you imagine the nightmare of making this work in a CMS like Wordpress? It would be much easier to just never use at all and just use for bold every time. If the only way to make sure you're using the semantics correctly is to just never use the tag at all, I say we just give up on this nonsense and use the tag which matches the semantics of what the person writing the text wants to convey.
andrei_says_ 3y ago
Just keep in mind that this will flag content on accessibility scans.
- AlienRobot 3y ago
 What does this mean? What are accessibility scans, and why are they flagging content?
 - TomaszZielinski 3y ago
 Accessibility is a legal requirement in some jurisdictions. Here's a random article about the upcoming EU regulations: https://www.siteimprove.com/glossary/eu-web-accessibility-directive/ https://www.siteimprove.com/glossary/eu-web-accessibility-di... - they also have a site checker that performs an automated accessibility scan.
 - AlienRobot 3y ago
 As far as I know screen readers don't seem to differentiate between , , or [1]. If the checker flags this despite there being no actual effects in the real world, it would really make me doubtful about its accuracy... >Mainstream screen readers currently treat B/I tags identically to STRONG/EM tags. That is, they are ignored unless a user specifies that they be indicated. Some users report that announcing changes can be distracting. [1] https://accessibility.psu.edu/boldfacehtml/#:~:text=tags.%20That%20is%2C-,they%20are%20ignored,-unless%20a%20user https://accessibility.psu.edu/boldfacehtml/#:~:text=tags.%20...
 - TomaszZielinski 3y ago
 That page also lists examples of semantic and visual uses of bold and italics, which sound pretty reasonable to me. As for it not being critical due to inconsistent screen reader support--it sounds like a chicken and egg problem. If developers don't use those tags consistently, then people using screen readers have hard time with them, and so screen readers adjust. In any case, if it doesn't hurt but can potentially help, I personally prefer to use semantic tags to convey the meaning and visual styles for pure visual effects.