

HTML5's missing piece: The disclosure tag - rriepe
http://matchstrike.net/strikepad/2010/03/html5s-missing-piece-the-disclosure-tag/

======
ugh
Seems quite US centric. I also really don’t know which problems the mere
existence of a separate tag will solve.

Text fields for disclosures next to the article entry form in the CMS and a <p
class="disclosure">-tag will do just fine, thank you. Plus you would still
have to implement all that even if a <disclosure>-tag existed.

~~~
rriepe
I'd say the mere presence of it as a separate tag is the most important point.

You're reading an article. It has a disclosure associated with it. Wouldn't
you like to know that?

I mentioned the possibilities of the situation arising in other countries in
the third sentence. It's only US-centric because the US (as far as I know) is
the only one who has implemented such a policy. I think it's safe to assume
the same will happen in other countries.

~~~
ugh
I would like to know that, but I wouldn’t read the source to find out.

What’s so bad about something like

    
    
      <p class="disclosure"><em>Disclosure:</em> XYZ</p>
    

?

Put it inside the <article>-tag (in our glorious HTML5 future) so you don’t
lose it. A <disclosure>-tag just seems too specific.

~~~
blaix
You wouldn't be reading the source to find out, but if there was ever a legal
dispute, someone probably would be. And in such a case it would be nice to
having something as unambiguous as a disclosure tag.

But I do agree it seems a little too specific.

------
keltex
I think that we should adopt the <scraped> tag. This could be used by sites
such as Mahalo to know where the content really came from:

<scaped>Content scaped from <http://en.wikipedia.org/> </scraped>

------
rriepe
Any feedback on this? I'd appreciate it since I'm not especially familiar with
the technical ins and outs of HTML5 or web standards in general. I know
there's plenty on HN who could help me here.

~~~
pixelbath
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>) cuts right to the heart of this
idea, as he talks about the problems with semantic markup.

~~~
TheThomas
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
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.

------
geuis
The author raises a good point on the subject of disclosure and its
importance. However, wrapping that important argument in the guise of "we need
a new tag" is simply link bait.

~~~
rriepe
I've sensationalized nothing. I've laid out my arguments for the new tag in
plain English. If you want to address the arguments, please do so, but don't
dismiss my entire article as link bait just because the idea is radical.

I've written on the topic of disclosure before (<http://blog.ivylees.com/ftc-
blogging-guidelines/>); the post submitted here isn't about the basic benefits
of disclosure at all. It's about a better way of providing those benefits.

