Eh, it's fine, elements should be defined for what they mean, not what they look like. The explanation and distinctions made between <b> and other elements (<i>, <em>, <strong>) make sense.
The suggested (not obligatory) user agent styling for <b> is `font-weight: bolder` an agent or authors could use lots of different things to bring attention to what the element contains and treat it differently from <strong>.
The entire purpose of an element like <b> is what it looks like. If we're being inclusive, then the entire purpose of an element like <b> is what it looks like, how it sounds, how it feels in Braille, and so on. Nothing more. It does not map to some abstract concept.
It should be defined as: When rendered on a visual display device supporting bold font, it makes the text bold. The specific behavior is not guaranteed and may vary based on the user-agent. For example, screen readers will pronounce the text with emphasis.
The entire purpose of <b> was what it looked like. They changed its definition to not be about what it looked like but why an author might make it look that way, i.e. to bring attention to it. The representation flows from the motivation, there's no need to embed a look in the definition.
In practice today, that's fine. Typically authors have a hard time differentiating what "emphasis," "importance," and "bring attention to" mean to them. Therefore, nothing conveys a distinction by default.
Eh, it's fine, elements should be defined for what they mean, not what they look like. The explanation and distinctions made between <b> and other elements (<i>, <em>, <strong>) make sense.
The suggested (not obligatory) user agent styling for <b> is `font-weight: bolder` an agent or authors could use lots of different things to bring attention to what the element contains and treat it differently from <strong>.
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/text-level-semantics....
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/rendering.html#phrasi...
The entire purpose of an element like <b> is what it looks like. If we're being inclusive, then the entire purpose of an element like <b> is what it looks like, how it sounds, how it feels in Braille, and so on. Nothing more. It does not map to some abstract concept.
It should be defined as: When rendered on a visual display device supporting bold font, it makes the text bold. The specific behavior is not guaranteed and may vary based on the user-agent. For example, screen readers will pronounce the text with emphasis.
The entire purpose of <b> was what it looked like. They changed its definition to not be about what it looked like but why an author might make it look that way, i.e. to bring attention to it. The representation flows from the motivation, there's no need to embed a look in the definition.
I write most of my content in markdown or asciidoc and I don't pay attention to whether it's b or strong :)
In practice today, that's fine. Typically authors have a hard time differentiating what "emphasis," "importance," and "bring attention to" mean to them. Therefore, nothing conveys a distinction by default.
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