HRWiki talk:Validation committee

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So... what is the point of this committee, exactly? Shouldn't everybody be replacing "bad code" when they see it? And what is wrong with the font tag? Are we getting rid of all HTML? Aurora the Homestar Coder 18:57, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nothing is necessarily wrong with the <font> tag, except that it is only valid for older versions of HTML. The wiki uses XHTML 1.0, and the <font> tag is deprecated in that language, meaning it is no longer in use and will invalidate your page if you use it. Invalid pages may not display properly in some browsers. Instead, you should use the more appropriate <span> tag. — Joey (talk·edits) 19:23, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I did not know that! Uh... dag, I've been littering pages with the "font" tag thanks to my signature. Uh... I'ma go fix that now... *runs away sheepishly* Aurora the Homestar Coder 19:24, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is a very very good idea to always put quote marks around your attribute values. It is never wrong to do so, and very often it is absolutely necessary. For instance, your <font color=#8B0000> isn't valid. Instead try <font color="#8B0000">. -- Tom 19:27, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Is my signature fixed now? I checked this page: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/index/attributes.html (this might be a good page to link to, as it's a comprehensive list of deprecated tags according to W3). Aurora the Homestar Coder 19:29, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hm, I didn't know this, but apparently the font tag is still part of the XHTML 1.0 Transitional spec, so we still have valid pages when people use it right. One thing though, the "#" symbol is unecessary and invalid when using the font tag. The "#" symbol is only important when declaring a color using CSS. — Joey (talk·edits) 16:36, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just a quick point. While <font> is, in fact, still a part of XHTML 1.0 Transitional, this is only due to the 'transitional' bit. It's in general wrong to use it, or any other HTML tags that do anything but give something structural or semantic value. <div> is structural; <blockquote> is semantic. So, though I realize validation is the top priority, it would be cool if this community could clean up the conceptually invalid stuff as well. Also, to Aurora: I think you're looking at the HTML 4.0 deprecated tags, not the XHTML 1.0 Transitional ones. HTML 4.0 has already been deprecated itself, as far as I can recall. (P.S. Please allow the <abbr> tag to be used in a Wiki context!) - Jweb Guru 18:10, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Introduction 2 isn't valid 2 Some Validation Committee members have invalid or depecated code in their sigs 3 Bookmarklet and other extension options 4 Confused 5 Fanstuff 6 Maybe off topic... 7 New color tags 8 New color tags

Introduction 2 isn't valid

HRWiki:Introduction_2 isn't valid XHTML. I would fix it myself, but it's a protected page. Could someone fix it? ~ Sephy 23:09, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

I would, but I don't know what's wrong with it... --Jay (Talk) 23:15, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Found the error. Took some time to discover it, though.

* '''[[MetaWikipedia:Help:Link|Link]]''' to other Wiki articles and other Web sites</div>

</div> should be

* '''[[MetaWikipedia:Help:Link|Link]]''' to other Wiki articles and other Web sites
</div></div>

instead. The </div> tag in the same line as the * bullet sign makes the Wiki software insert the </div> tag before closing the </ul> and </li> tags. ~ Sephy 23:46, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah. Okay, fixed. --Jay (Talk) 09:15, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Some Validation Committee members have invalid or depecated code in their sigs

Woddfellow2 and firefoxman's signatures break the validation in the Validation committee page. I don't know what's worse, that members of the Validation committee are breaking pages with their sigs or that the validation page itself, which should be setting an example, is broken. They're signatures, so I don't feel too comfortable editing them. What should we do on those cases? ~ Sephy 00:40, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I've messaged a few of these people and will try to catch the rest of them this afternoon. Sorry it's taken me so long to notice this and do anything about it. I'm also going to go ahead and edit them on this page just to keep things valid. — Joey (talk·edits) 21:14, 14 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Bookmarklet and other extension options

Another option for easy checking is the "validate html" bookmarket from Squarefree. And I use the Web Developer extension for Firefox. -- Tom 01:25, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Just mentioning, the Opera browser has valitation built in. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  15:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Confused

I am very confused about this commitee. What is it? Rogue Leader / (my talk) 19:20, 14 Sep 2005 (UTC)

There's an international organization called the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C for short) that publishes official specifications on how HTML should be properly formatted. Since MediaWiki allows HTML in articles, there's potential for users to create improper HTML. There isn't anything built-in to MediaWiki that checks for improper code, so we have to keep an eye out for it ourselves. Thus, we created a committee to find invalid pages and properly format them. Does this make sense? — Joey (talk·edits) 20:58, 14 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Much. Thanks Mr. Day! Rogue Leader / (my talk) 23:58, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Hi! I have a question. I have now encountered two user pages that render different on different browsers (IE and Mozilla) - they are now fixed, but It doesn't mean that the same problem can't occur in a regular page. Does your commitee address such rendering issues (are the XHTML 1.0 standars supposed to produce the same output regardless of renderer)? Do you have a set of guidelines to make pages look uniform across browser platforms (at least the major ones). --Stux 19:23, 7 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Fanstuff

I've noticed that a lot of the Fanstuff pages have bad XHTML code in them, including the navigation side bar. Should the validation committee also be concerned with pages on Fanstuff, or not, or should there even be a separate Fanstuff validation committee? -AtionSong 16:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I decided to be bold and created it. If you guys would come down to help, there are a lot of code issues on fanstuff aside from color tags. Thanks in advance. -AtionSong 17:22, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's the link: HRFWiki:HRFWiki:Validation committee. -AtionSong

Maybe off topic...

This isn't a validation issue, more a usability issue, but don't know where else to put it.

When I, say, edit the DVD Fun Facts, say Real Life References, on return to the actual page it looks for the name "Real Life References". Invariably, it finds the first one, not the "_2" one which it should. Is this an error in programming, a failing in the browser parsing the namespace, or what? - Qermaq - (^T/C)  01:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

New color tags

So are we going to have to use the color's hex-decimal code with the new color tags? I found a hex-decimal color guide. [Webmonkey]

New color tags

So are we going to have to use the color's hex-decimal code with the new color tags? I found a hex-decimal color guide. [Webmonkey] --Onekopaka 19:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)