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Re: Semantic structure of 'Minutes of a Meeting'

for

From: Gez Lemon
Date: Sep 1, 2005 6:00AM

On 01/09/05, Michael Stenitzer < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> > <h3>Speaker 1:</h3> <blockquote>"blah blah blah"</blockquote>
> >
> > <h3>Speaker 2:</h3> <blockquote>"more mumble here"</blockquote>
> >
> > <h3>Speaker 1:</h3> <blockquote>"Response, etc."</blockquote>
> >
> > <h3>Speaker 3:</h3> <blockquote>"interjection here"</blockquote>
> >
>
> improvement:
> <h3><cite>Speaker 1</cite>:</h3> <blockquote>"Response, etc."</blockquote>

The blockquote element also requires container elements such as
paragraphs, lists, etc, as it shouldn't contain plain text.

Headings before each entry is an interesting approach. I can see that
it could be valuable to some assistive technologies, as it would
provide a convenient means of navigating the document in headings
mode, but wonder about its semantic value. In a meeting where people
make short salient points in succession, you could end up with a
document overloaded with headings. It would also result in several
headings with the same text (as it's the speakers name), which whilst
not illegal, I wouldn't feel comfortable with.

Personally, I would have chosen a definition list, with just the
agenda items marked up as headings. The definition list would provide
the semantic association between the speaker and what they said, but
also affords the option of noting what they did as well as what they
said:

<h2 id="accesskeys">Access Keys</h2>
<dl>
<dt><cite>John Foliot</cite></dt>
<dd>John demonstrates accesskey collisions.</dd>
<dd><q>One of the problems ...</q></dd>
<dd><q>Another issue is ....</q></dd>
<dd>John demonstrates the other issue with consequence ...</dd>
<dt><cite>Grant Broome</cite></dt>
<dd><q>There are circumstances where ...</q></dd>
<dd><q>And so on ...</q></dd>
</dl>

<h2 id="nextitem">Next Item</h2>
<dl>
....
</dl>

Semantically, I would have thought that had more meaning that multiple
repeated headings. It would be interesting to know whether current
assistive technology handles definition lists correctly, and whether
they allow definition lists to be navigated easily.

Best regards,

Gez

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