Bert Doorn wrote:
sometimes a list is just a list! You would call a list of one item a list if you would call the same group and structure of words a list if it contained more than one item. See, even the act of assuming it's an "item" gives credence to it being a list.
Just to clarify my point. I did not mean to ask whether it is "possible" to
call a list of one item a list. More a question of "why would you call it a
list" and in HTML terms, why use the extra element. If we take this
further, we might as well make every section in a html document (heading and
paragraphs below it) a definition list and forget about headings and
paragraphs. In fact, why not just make everything a div, span or object, so
it all becomes very generic. (No, I'm not advocating that approach)
well, possibly they are - see Terry's earlier post. But even if they are, it in no way means that *in every situation* it's personal preference as to what is semantically best. That's what's called a "slippery slope" argument - just because you can find some examples where things aren't clear-cut, doesn't mean every case isn't clear cut. Again, sometimes a list is a list and a list is the right thing.
So many ways of grouping related items are correct, and without
further information on the differences we're just guessing. By all means though if one looks better or suits a personal preference then just use it, but it's not like we can draw any best practices from this.
Sure, it's personal preference, just like using tables nested n levels deep, often replacing a single paragraph with a complex table (no, I don't advocate that either). I'm sure we've all seen examples of this (ab)use of tables. Are definition lists in danger of replacing tables for layout?
Regards
Mike Brown
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