I think the difficulty is largely with a human tendency to perceive that only substance contains meaning: br is an element which provides meaning through empty space.

Maybe. :)

I guess the conclusion is, it’s a personal choice.

I believe a good way of ascertaining the semantic value of a line break is turning off CSS - at least for those that are skeptical.

Best way of putting that I’ve heard — - clearly, if a passage makes no sense without a line break, it must have a line break. If there is no available markup which makes more semantic sense for the context, a line break is the best semantic choice.

Thanks for your comment!

I believe a good way of ascertaining the semantic value of a line break is turning off CSS - at least for those that are skeptical.

There is no “fence” to be on so to speak - either you call for a line break (as you might if using an old fashioned typewriter) or you don’t.

If you actually have something that constitutes a paragraph you of course use the <p> tag - but unlike a <br> you wouldn’t do it for the space/break it creates. If you have something that falls short of a <p> then use a <div> or <span> depending, something that would not imply that what is being wrapped is something it is _not_.

To reiterate, the semantic value of a line break is that it is a break - whatever the context may be - it does not _have_ to be a poem or address, though those are sensible uses for the tag as it were.

There really is no ambiguity about as much as I used to think there was.

First, some of my own:

I think sometimes we question whether <br /> is semantic because it has no content and therefore seems not to be structural. However, separation of content seems to me to be something which is inherently structural. A <br /> provides delineation between two objects although it may not contain any content itself. This separation is a perfectly valid way of delineating structure. There may be other ways (placing each line of poetry within a <div>, for example), but they are not structurally superior and add to the overall bulk of code being used.

Also, Matthew Smith discussed how he feels that the <br /> is a semantic element: (in reference to an address)

Our <br /> has semantic significance, acthing this time as a field delimiter in a data structure. It acts as a separator between fields in a record.

And in general:

…a line break is a form of text delimiter, if you like, a type of punctuation.

Others made their own points, but these particularly stood out for me.

@Karl - Microformats aren’t a bad way to go either. I just prefer a sparser code - unless I have a particular reason to employ microformats, I’m inclined to go for a method which minimizes the amount of code needed (both HTML and CSS.)

Interesting you mention addresses as the example there. I mark them up using Microformats now so whether you wrap the whole lot in an address tag or not, you have sufficient CSS hooks to set each span as display:block;. Semantic with no br debate

Regards, Karl