The development of HTML5 is now so far advanced that it was incorporated into the MediaWiki software and has been the default on Wikimedia wikis since September 2012.
This project serves to help editors organize the adaptation of articles and other Wikipedia pages to HTML5. The fifty or so prepared searches reveal the obsolete tags. The edits range from simple to complex, and the numbers from a few fixes anyone can enjoy updating manually, up to many thousands for a run with a Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser bot script.
Scope
Implementation of the new HTML5 attributes accepted by MediaWiki software. These include:
Attention, none of the data is equivalent. The obsolete code centered much more things, however the CSS values apply either to inline or block elements only. In some cases, substantial changes may be necessary to replicate with CSS the appearance which was obtained with the old code.
align="right"
{| class="float-right"
style="text-align:right;"
Positioning can be made using position: or float:, display: inline-block;, and alignments using text-align: as a replacement.
valign="top"
style="vertical-align:top;"
valign can be replaced by CSS vertical-align: on a cell or row. Note that it cannot be applied to a whole table.
<tt>...</tt>
<code>...</code>
<kbd>...</kbd>
<samp>...</samp>
<span style="font-family:monospace,monospace;">
Depending on the desired semantic, <code> is for fragments of computer code, <kbd> for user input and <samp> for outputs, and even <var> for variables.[4]
Note:font-family:monospace,monospace is correct, and prevents an unexpectedly small font in Gecko- and WebKit-based browsers, see WP:MONO.
Attention, none of the data is equivalent. The obsolete code centered much more things, however the CSS values apply either to inline or block elements only. In some cases, substantial changes may be necessary to replicate with CSS the appearance which was obtained with the old code.
Here a percentage makes sense. A simple conversion is not possible as the result depends on the surrounding code and partly also on the browser used. One should simply decide which value is appropriate, often rounded to 10% percentage for the particular application. Note that <small>...</small> is for fine print, not for stylistic issues.
The specification should definitely end with a generic font, usually serif, sans-serif, ormonospace, and rarely cursive or fantasy. In general, these inflexible specifications of a font should be removed entirely or replaced by semantic elements, such as <code> (see below).
The following attributes relevant for Wikipedia tables are also considered obsolete in HTML5: bgcolor, border, bordercolor, cellpadding, cellspacing.
The following elements were formerly obsolete in HTML4 and "rehabilitated" in HTML5: u and s[5]
Obsolete elements and attributes
These elements and attributes should no longer be used on Wikipedia pages. See each element or attribute's details for its recommended replacement.
center
Text
For most text, <center>...</center> can be replaced with {{center}}.
To center templates, check the template documentation as most have a parameter for general styling or specifically for alignment. If the template does not have an alignment parameter, consider adding one.
Searches for templates do not find redirects, but you can alter the query to complete the search for that template's obsolete usage:
for each template list its redirects with the "What Links Here" tool,
and replace the two occurrences of its template name.
Do this for each of its redirects in turn.
Note that for color names, only the W3C specified basic and extended colors are valid with CSS. <font> accepts arbitrary strings for color names; CSS does not support these. When converting to CSS, these strings can be replaced either with a sufficiently similar hexadecimal color code or a valid color name that is nearest to their shade. For example:
Hexadecimal color codes without the # prefix are valid with <font>, but # is mandatory with CSS. Only 3 and 6 digit hex codes are valid in CSS. When 4 and 5 digit codes have to be converted to CSS, they need to be appended with 00 and 0 respectively. For 8 digit hex codes, the last two digits have to be discarded.
Under the previous HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.1 usage <cite>...</cite> defined an entire citation. With HTML5, a long-running dispute has erupted:
The W3C specs preserve the broad usage, though now require that the material contain at least one of: the title of the cited work, its author, a URL to the work, or an abbreviated reference (short citation, as used in Harvard referencing). This is the spec followed by most Web developers.
The WHATWG specs have limited the element to the title of the work only. This is the spec followed by most browser developers. The only practical implications of WHATWG's break from W3C on this element is that the default browser treatment of the element (to italicize its content) would be applied to more material than the title. However, Wikipedia's site-wide CSS turns off this stylization anyway (per MOS:TITLES, only titles of particular kinds of works should be italicized).
W3C briefly switched to WHATWG's definition in the draft stages of HTML5, but switched back to their own definition in 2012 after protest from the Web developer community. This difference subsequently disappeared when the W3C's version was subsumed into the WHATWG's version in the late 2010s and now the WHATWG's version is the only version in relation to the cite element.
Following common practice (e.g. the use of <cite> around links to author IDs in blog and forum software, and many other well-deployed uses for the element for more than work titles), Wikipedia is following the W3C HTML5.2 Recommendation, which has superseded HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.1, and all other previous W3C [X]HTML specs. Our citation template system wraps the entire citation in the <cite>...</cite> element.
Note that uses of <cite> exist without the closing </cite>, or incorrectly closed by </span>; these need to be repaired.
<cite>{{cite book |last=Sappol |first=Michael |title=A traffic of dead bodies: anatomy and embodied social identity in nineteenth-century America |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, New Jersey |date=2002 |isbn=0-691-05925-X |url=http://books.google.com/books/princeton?id=-9cKRzEx6ywC&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+Traffic+of+Dead+Bodies}}</cite>
{{cite book |last=Sappol |first=Michael |title=A traffic of dead bodies: anatomy and embodied social identity in nineteenth-century America |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, New Jersey |date=2002 |isbn=0-691-05925-X |url=http://books.google.com/books/princeton?id=-9cKRzEx6ywC&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+Traffic+of+Dead+Bodies}}
Where an anchor id is manually used with a citation template, the id should be moved to the |ref= parameter. Additionally when removing cite tags with id=CITEREF please understand that this was a manual reference, and must be updated by removal, then making sure that the all the numbered |last= parameters such as |last1= are available, which in turn may require changing any (deprecated) numbered |authorx= parameter used into a |lastx= parameter and a matching |firstx= one. See the example with and without the id=CITEREF... and |author3=, below.
Obsolete
Replacement
Search
<cite id=Alberti>{{cite book |last=Arnold |first=David L. G. ||editor-first=John |editor-last=Alberti |date=2003 |title=[[Leaving Springfield|Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture]] |location=Detroit |publisher=[[Wayne State University Press]] |chapter=Use a Pen, Sideshow Bob: The Simpsons and the Threat of High Culture |isbn=0-8143-2849-0}}</cite>
{{cite book |last=Arnold |first=David L. G. |editor-first=John |editor-last=Alberti |date=2003 |title=[[Leaving Springfield|Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture]] |location=Detroit |publisher=[[Wayne State University Press]] |chapter=Use a Pen, Sideshow Bob: The Simpsons and the Threat of High Culture |isbn=0-8143-2849-0 |ref=Alberti}}
<cite id="CITEREFAsphaugRyanZuber2003">{{cite journal |last=Asphaug |first=Erik |last2=Ryan |first2=Eileen V. |author3=Zuber, Maria T. |title=Asteroid Interiors |journal=Asteroids III |pages=463–484 |publisher=University of Arizona |location=Tucson |date=2003 |url= http://www-geodyn.mit.edu/asphaug.interiors.pdf |access-date=2009-01-04 |bibcode=2002aste.conf..463A}}</cite>
{{cite journal |last=Asphaug |first=Erik |last2=Ryan |first2=Eileen V. |last3=Zuber |first3=Maria T. |title=Asteroid Interiors |journal=Asteroids III |pages=463–484 |publisher=University of Arizona |location=Tucson |date=2003 |url= http://www-geodyn.mit.edu/asphaug.interiors.pdf |access-date=2009-01-04 |bibcode=2002aste.conf..463A}}
This partcipants list is rather moribund; it's probably more practical to add yourself to Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia/Participants, since that's a full-scale wikiproject devoted to this and other forms of Wikipedia technical cleanup.
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 20:04, 15 October 2015 (UTC).
Good to go. — CpiralCpiral 07:25, 23 December 2015 (UTC).
