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According to https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/sections.html#the-article-element a user-submitted comment on a blog post could be an <article> but the same page explains that "A section forms part of something else. An article is its own thing."

By own thing I understand that what is inside the block will make sense without additional information. But this is not the case for the comments on this example blog post because I need the article's information to understand which tennis match the users are talking about.

Am I therefore right in saying that <section> should replace <article> for the comments in the last <section>?

<article>
    <header>
        <h1>Roger Federer vs Novak Djokovic: Wimbledon 2019 Final</h1>
    </header>

    <section>
        <h3>First Set</h3>
    </section>

    <section>
        <h3>Second Set</h3>
    </section>

    <section>
        <article itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments" id="c1">
            <p>Posted by: <span itemprop="creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"> <span itemprop="name">Jane Doe</span></span></p>

            <p>I cannot believe he missed those two match points!</p>
        </article>   

        <article itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments" id="c2">
            <p>Posted by: <span itemprop="creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"> <span itemprop="name">John Doe</span></span></p>

            <p>The last point of the third game in set 1 was epic!</p>          
        </article>      
    </section>
</article>
WPRookie82
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  • Try reading W3C Recommendations and form your conclusion based on your app/ content: https://www.w3.org/TR/html52/sections.html#the-section-element and https://www.w3.org/TR/html52/sections.html#the-article-element – Frank Fajardo Dec 29 '19 at 03:07
  • This adds some more confusion unfortunately because whereas WHATWG is using ```
    ``` for comments in the section "Here is that same blog post, but showing some of the comments:", the W3C is using ```
  • ``` for the same section which in my opinion makes more sense. But according to https://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/7753 "WHATWG maintains the HTML and DOM Living Standards" so should WHATWG be used as a rule of thumb?
    •  – WPRookie82 Dec 29 '19 at 07:40
  • `
    ` has a definite intention: if a content can stand on its own, it can be treated as an article. A `
    ` has a more general intention however. Maybe you can find [this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4781077/html5-best-practices-section-header-aside-article-elements) and [this](http://html5doctor.com/downloads/h5d-sectioning-flowchart.pdf) helpful.
     – Frank Fajardo Dec 29 '19 at 21:12
  • I'm incidentally aware of both links especially the flow chart which is ultimately why I believe that a comment on a blog almost always cannot stand on its own; "I cannot believe he missed those two match points!" means absolutely nothing without the original post so in my opinion ```
    ``` in this case would be the wrong element to use. But then someone might argue that if a user decides to submit his own match review as a comment on the blog post then that's a piece of information which can live on its own because it doesn't require the blog post to be understood. Hence my confusion.
     – WPRookie82 Dec 30 '19 at 06:04
  • My personal opinion is that it really depends on how YOU as the author of your web content decides on whether your content can stand on its own. A comment that says "I cannot believe he missed those two match points!" can stand on its own if it also includes a link or some other info that gives it further context. In this case, the usage of either `
    ` or `
    ` is up to you, based on how you'd like your content to be treated. Again, that's my opinion.
     – Frank Fajardo Dec 30 '19 at 07:15
  • Yes Frank, in fact I 100% agree with you, it's also what WHATWG says on their website. For this specific case my personal opinion is that one should wrap the whole comments section inside a ```section``` element with an ordered list inside. – WPRookie82 Dec 30 '19 at 16:20

0 Answers0