Question

In the W3C working draft for HTML5 here’s a line I find confusing:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/introduction.html#html-vs-xhtml

Comments that contain the string “–>”
can be represented in the DOM but not
in the HTML syntax or in XML.

I can interpret this in two different ways:

• Comments that contain the string “–>” can be represented in XML and in the DOM but not in the HTML syntax

• Comments that contain the string”–>” can be represented in the DOM but neither in the HTML syntax nor in XML.

I really find the original formulation highly confusing. Which one does it mean and is it even correct english?

Who should I contact if I want to point out that I find such a wording highly confusing and that hence there’s a high probability that other non-native english speaker would find this kind of formulation highly confusing too?

Answer 1

Your second interpretation is correct. You can email your comment to the W3C HTML Working Group at [e-mail], they’ll take it from there. They’ve confused me in the past and since reworded sections.