Drop some unhelpful non-normative text about “b” element usage

[sideshowbarker]

This change removes from the spec the following text:

The b element should be used as a last resort when no other element is more appropriate.

…as well as an example which ends with this statement:

In the previous example, the correct element to use would have been strong, not b.

There’s not really strong agreement about b vs strong usage. A lot of people would in fact just use b to mark up the text in the b-vs-strong example given in the spec.

Given the lack of agreement, the spec can’t do enough justice to the topic in the limited amount of space we can reasonably devote to trying to shine light on it in the spec itself. It’s something that’s better left to MDN or to other sources that attempt to provide this kind of usage guidance for authors.

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/text-level-semantics.html ( diff )

[mtrootyy]

I agree that there is debate about the more appropriate usage of each element.
However, because the principle itself is not wrong, the following statement should remain.

The b element should be used as a last resort when no other elements are appropriate.

Otherwise, the b element will be overused, rendering other elements meaningless.

[zcorpan]

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#semantics-2 already says

Authors must not use elements, attributes, or attribute values for purposes other than their appropriate intended semantic purpose, as doing so prevents software from correctly processing the page.

Saying that a particular element is "last resort" serves to discourage its use, but it's not clear to me what the upside is to discourage using the b element.

The i element has similar text, but without "should":

Authors are encouraged to consider whether other elements might be more applicable than the i element, for instance the em element for marking up stress emphasis, or the dfn element to mark up the defining instance of a term.

[bkardell]

Feels very weird to be commenting on this in late 2025, but... It definitely feels like b and i should be similar.

[annevk]

I don't think I agree with this change. Perhaps I could be persuaded that b and strong are equivalent, but the guidance here is about a much broader set of elements. And people definitely abuse <p><b> as a heading and should not.