Out of the box W3C (un)compliance?

That post and trac ticket are two years old, just FYI. We’ve changed default theme (twice) since then.

A quick check on the current default (2011) and I get 34 Errors, 1 warning. Of the 34 errors, they’re all directly related to bad HTML I put in posts intentionally (don’t ask) and “Bad value EditURI for attribute rel …” related, which makes sense, as rel is currently in a wiggy state right now and not accepting customized tags, even though w3c claims they’re okay in their documentation.

2011 is w3c friendly. W3C’s validations are inconsistent with their own documentation.

Hi Ipstenu,

Thankyou for the reply.

That post and trac ticket are two years old, just FYI. We’ve changed default theme (twice) since then.

I am aware of that – and two years on the problem is still not fixed. Or more accurately wordpress has decided it’s not a problem because they think their interpretation of accessibility is better than the international body that sets it.

A quick check on the current default (2011) and I get 34 Errors, 1 warning. Of the 34 errors, they’re all directly related to bad HTML I put in posts intentionally (don’t ask) and “Bad value EditURI for attribute rel …”

I get 16 errors that are not due to anything I’ve done but your mileage may vary. What would be nice if there was an XHTML template as well as HTML5. HTML5 is still rather “new.”

2011 is w3c friendly. W3C’s validations are inconsistent with their own documentation.

2011 is not w3c validator friendly and therefore it is not w3c friendly. I don’t know if there is inconsistent documentation or it’s just a different interpretation. I do know that – rather than blaming the validator or the w3c – other content management software (squaresoft, movable type) somehow manage to validate. And really, that’s all I want.

I’m not interested in the reasons/excuses for why wordpress doesn’t validate – I’d just like it fixed. Some people get picky, look up the validator and then tell me “it’s not valid!! what are you doing wrong??” They’re not going to be interested in the official excuse you’ve just given.

I’m new to these forums – is there any official channel where users can put in feature requests for new versions?

Sigh. Sorry if I sound frustrated but this is rather vexing…

2011 is not w3c validator friendly and therefore it is not w3c friendly. I don’t know if there is inconsistent documentation or it’s just a different interpretation.

If the validator doesn’t ‘approve’ things that the documentation by w3c does approve, who is right? The software or the documentation?

I’m blaming W3C for (a) poor documentation and (b) an imperfect validator.

I’m also blaming WordPress for not being 100% solid on this.

2011 is ‘valid enough’. It should be better, it’s a LOT better than Default was, and 2010, but it’s not perfect, you’re right. But if you can’t see that WP is improving, and w3c is making it hard to improve by being inconsistant, then … well. Can’t help ya.

I’m happy if they are working toward making it better. Despite my little gripe here, I’m very happy with WordPress overall.

To be fair to wordpress, the other compliant CMS examples I cited before were using XHTML and not HTML5.

To be fair to the w3c, there is an “experimental” disclaimer on the validator page for HTML5. I think part of the problem is jumping to HTML5 before the w3c has finished fiddling with it – they’re probably going to be fiddling with the spec for a while yet.

XHTML is very much “bedded down” and if there were still inconsistencies between the w3c validator and its XHTML documentation, well shame on them.

I’m not suggesting wordpress should jump backwards to XHTML. While I personally haven’t wrapped my head around HTML5 yet, I’m sure it has many improvements/advantages over XHTML.

I don’t know if it’s feasible, but if it is possible for wordpress to include a valid XHTML template for luddites such as myself – everyone would be happy.

if there were still inconsistencies between the w3c validator and its XHTML documentation, well shame on them.

There were. Which is the problem. W3C has guidelines, and those are often about as good as my suggestions to my cat. Willfully ignored because killing my shoe is far more entertaining.