[uf-discuss] Re: Precise Expansion Patterns

[Andy Mabbett]

On Sun, December 16, 2007 17:30, Jeremy Keith wrote:
> Jim wrote:
>
>> Span seems a more pragmatic choice to me, since title on <span>
>> supplements the enclosed text, whereas title on <abbr> replaces the
>> enclosed text. As someone else mentioned, for a lot of these cases we
>> want to annotate a piece of text with computer-parsable information.
>
> I agree that there are problems (both semantic and—from the angle of
> assistive technology—possibly practical) associated with using ABBR. But I
> really don't understand this obsession with SPAN. Why would SPAN be any
> more or less preferable to any other element?

Span is used as an example of "a generic paired element". The difference
between most such elements and ABBR is that in the former, the title
supplements the content of the element, in ABBR - a sepcial case - it is
an alternative for, or replacement of, it.

> In my opinion, this matter might be best resolved by giving the
> choice back to the author. Allow the author to decide what element is
> semantically best suited for the datetime pattern, just as the author is
> allowed to decide what element is semantically best suited for any other
> microformat class name.

The model I proposed earlier today allows for this.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
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