Subject: [TOOLS-DEVELOPMENT] html-ized rfc output no longer uses <h1>, <h2>, etc

From: Jeff Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2021 15:08:10 +0000

Recently (May?) links like https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3261<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftools.ietf.org%2Fhtml%2Frfc3261&data=04%7C01%7Cjeff.martin%40comtechtel.com%7C2d032f16e2af40b7f55408d95091c907%7Ca9a26e696ae040c1bd801ca6cc677828%7C0%7C0%7C637629409329811014%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=hRiDZYhy2IH9N%2BNEfkrvN4BBlzLFrXueEzGgQrQbMbg%3D&reserved=0> started redirecting to https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3261<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdatatracker.ietf.org%2Fdoc%2Fhtml%2Frfc3261&data=04%7C01%7Cjeff.martin%40comtechtel.com%7C2d032f16e2af40b7f55408d95091c907%7Ca9a26e696ae040c1bd801ca6cc677828%7C0%7C0%7C637629409329820971%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=Xip6tZi87MwHQEAwib8laAbfB5%2FqfuSpexER9gLuP1Y%3D&reserved=0>

The html-ized output is changed at this new location.   Prior to the May change, headings in the html used <h1>, <h2>, etc tags, as seen in this Wayback machine capture from April 29, 2021<https://web.archive.org/web/20210429024904/https:/tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3261>
<span class="h2"><h2><a class="selflink" name="section-1" href="#section-1">1</a>Introduction</h2></span>
Since May, the html no longer includes the <h2> elements, so now like the html looks like this:
<span class="h2">    <a class="selflink" id="section-1"   href="#section-1">1</a>Introduction     </span>

Visually there is no significant change.   However, removing the <h2> (and similar) HTML heading markup makes it harder for machine tools to deduce the structure of the page.  In particular I use a bookmarklet https://earshinov.github.io/tocit/<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fearshinov.github.io%2Ftocit%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cjeff.martin%40comtechtel.com%7C2d032f16e2af40b7f55408d95091c907%7Ca9a26e696ae040c1bd801ca6cc677828%7C0%7C0%7C637629409329830928%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=kL9P60EEWu7I98XqqK73ty2EYdQWiVHVzx9uIwrOr0k%3D&reserved=0> to generate an interactive table of contents, which relies on <h1>, <h2>, and similar.  This removal of <h1> etc tags probably also affects "screen readers" used by people with visual impairments.

I'd like to suggest restoring use of HTML headings like <h1>, <h2>, etc to the html-ized output.  Is there a process I should follow for making this suggestion?

/Jeff/

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