Semantic lists

Silktide looks for text written as a list - lines starting with bullets or numbers - that is not marked up as a list in the page's code. Real list markup lets treat the items as a group instead of a run of unrelated lines.

Lists faked with line breaks look right on screen but carry no structure:

<!-- Problem: a "list" made of text and line breaks -->
<p>
  * Apples<br>
  * Pears<br>
  * Bananas
</p>

Why this matters

When a list is marked up properly, a announces it as a list, says how many items it has, and lets the listener jump between items or skip the whole thing. A fake list is just lines of text - the listener hears "star Apples, star Pears" with no sense of where the list starts or ends, and no way to skip past it. For long lists that difference is the difference between seconds and minutes.

How to fix it

Rewrite the text using real list markup in , and remove the manual bullets or numbers - the browser renders them for you:

<!-- Bulleted items: an unordered list -->
<ul>
  <li>Apples</li>
  <li>Pears</li>
  <li>Bananas</li>
</ul>

<!-- Numbered steps: an ordered list -->
<ol>
  <li>Preheat the oven</li>
  <li>Mix the batter</li>
  <li>Bake for 40 minutes</li>
</ol>

How Silktide tests this

Look at each element on the page whose direct contents are only text and line breaks (<br> tags), skipping anything already inside real list markup.
Split the text into lines at the line breaks.
Count lines that begin with a bullet-like character (such as *, -, or •) or with a number followed by a period or closing parenthesis.
Report the element when at least three lines match the same pattern, as a bulleted or numbered list candidate.

Troubleshooting

The flagged text is quoted material

Content reproduced verbatim - a plain-text email, a code sample, a quoted document - can legitimately contain bullet-like lines. If converting it to list markup would misrepresent the source, you can the finding.