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Bug 21920 - make note on heading use clearer
Summary: make note on heading use clearer
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: HTML5 spec (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC Windows NT
: P3 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: This bug has no owner yet - up for the taking
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
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Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-05-03 15:21 UTC by steve faulkner
Modified: 2013-06-02 21:35 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Attachments

Description steve faulkner 2013-05-03 15:21:38 UTC
comment on note at top of http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/common-idioms.html#sub-head

comment from: http://html5doctor.com/howto-subheadings/#comment-34126

It's confusing because it isn't clear what the status is of a spec telling authors “do not do this, but it isn't the case that you must not do it, nor even the case that you should not do it”.

If I do do it, so what? Nobody can complain that I'm not meeting the spec's requirements.

Or if somebody did wish me to follow commands such as that, they could request that I write “valid HTML which complies with all ‘do not’ commands in the spec” — which as well as being unweidly, also <i>de facto</i> introduces a third level of conformance requirements.

If it's really something that authors shouldn't do, then make it a proper conformance requirement. If it's OK for them to do it, don't tell them not to do it.

If that makes sense to you and this is something you're interested in fixing, feel free to copy my comment into a bug report, if that helps with the process.
Comment 1 steve faulkner 2013-06-02 21:35:42 UTC
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are
satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If
you have additional information and would like the Editor to reconsider, please
reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML
Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest
title and text for the Tracker Issue; or you may create a Tracker Issue
yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:

   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: fixed
Change Description: made author conformance requirements clear
refer to
https://github.com/w3c/html/commit/232f1459231f4714234f106044e62a942631aeec

rationale: agreed with commenter.