Valid XHTML? Who Cares!

This guy, along with many others over at wordpress.com are complaining about their “site” not validating properly.

Ah, the cry of the non-geek: “What’s validation??” Quite simply W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) writes the HTML, XHTML and the other stuff that we (the rest of the world) use to display web pages. Validation is where a web designer will go to the W3C and get them to (automatically) check the HTML and CSS against the guidelines. Any errors, faults or warnings will then be displayed so that the designer can fix it.

Now. I have two points (for a change I am actually trying to make a point!) here:

1. Why is it so damned important. Unless you’re trying to impress other geeks/nerds/whatever with your web design prowess, what is the problem? Does it display correctly in all the major browsers (IE, Opera, Safari, Firefox etc)? Does it look right? Does it convey the message that you’re trying to, well, convey? Yes? Then STOP BEING SO DAMNED ANAL ABOUT IT! Ok, if you’re offering web design services to someone else then you need to be anal about it. If you’re running a blog, then is it really that important?

2. You are using a FREE service. Note that. It’s free. You don’t pay for it. Zilch, nothing, nada, zip, nowt. Nothing. And yet you’ve got the fucking nerve to whinge? It’s not just the guy linked above I’m having a go at here. Have a look through the forum. Most of the threads in there are about trivial niff naff that is mostly user stupidity or shit that’s really not important. Yes, you’ll see my name in some of those topics. That’s because I want to help others with what (little) I know about WP. Some people really are noobs at the WP way of doing things and If I can help them make life that little bit easier then I will.

If site validation is really that important, there’s always THIS and THIS. Of course, that means spending money.

Collin on March 27, 2006 | Filed Under Words

3 Comments

Abhijit Nadgouda on March 27th, 2006

Hi Cornell,

The validation is not important only for syntax or for geeky showoff, it is important even from the SEO point of view. Technorati also suggests to keep pages valid to make sure that they are crawled properly.

The technology standards like valid XHTML and CSS are not only for namesake, they do make a difference to the end user somewhere.

It might be a priority for some and not for some. I am not ranting about or discrediting wordpress.com by reporting these things but bringing it to notice of the development team, so that these bugs can be fixed.

Regards,
Abhijit.

Cornell on March 27th, 2006

Hi Abhijit

Many thanks for the comment. I didn’t want to single out just your blog, I just couldn’t find the one that I really wanted to rant about and yours was handy.

I understand why valid XHTML and CSS are important, but the context must be understood.

I enjoy writing. To an extent (albeit very limited) the look and validity doesn’t matter so much to me. I enjoy playing with design and layout, but I really enjoy the writing. That, to me, is what blogging is about. The writing.

Whether the site validates or not I couldn’t give a monkeys about. As it happens the CSS and HTML both validate for this site, but that’s luck and work on the part of the theme creator, not through anything I’ve done.

As for SEO, and web crawlers, again, in my hobby web work they make not a bit of difference to me. If I were working in the web design industry then validation would be up there at priority number three (right behind layout and content). But I’m not. I write because I enjoy writing. If people want to read then fantastic. If people want to comment, even better! That said, if I were in the web design business then I probably wouldn’t be using something like wordpress.com to blog anyway. I would use paid services (as this site) or at shared space where I could have full control over layout, content and of course validation.

The main point that I was trying to make above is that wordpress.com is a free service that is primarily a testing server for the MU version of wordpress. Things are gonna break, the developers are gonna fix them. That people can use the service to blog for free is great.

When they bitch, whinge and whine when things don’t work every time all the time on a free service (no, I’m not including you in this very sweeping generalisation!) and start NINE threads about the same thing without searching, reading other threads and the FAQ or submitting feedback first it starts to get on my nerves.

As stated on one of the forum threads today most readers are still using Internet Explorer, so there’s the first reason not to worry about valid CSS. IE can’t translate most of it properly anyway!

Peace.

Abhijit Nadgouda on March 27th, 2006

Hi Cornell,

I agree with you completely that Wordpress.com is a free service and I am glad to be using it; and my favorite publishing tool is Wordpress.

Its probably just my perspective that reporting bugs is good as it can help improve the product/service, free or not. Fixing the bug can be a prerogative of the development team.

No hard feelings.

Regards,
Abhijit.

Cornell Finch