Allow the <small> tag

Question

Can the <small> HTML tag be allowed and properly styled?

Currently people wanting to write something small use either ^sup or _sub which achieves a similar effect, but using it for small text is:

• Semantically wrong
• Too small
• Only the most advanced users know of this "feature"

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Small text is very useful in many circumstances on most (if not all) stack exchange websites. Here is a couple use cases! I put the text that would be <small> in italics instead.

• Stack Overflow: If your C++ class has a private variable you cannot access it outside of the class or outside of friend classes/functions, that's the whole point of it!

  Note: if you really want to you can access it using pointer hacks, but the method to do that varies from compiler to compiler and it's technically undefined behavior.

• Super User: If your computer doesn't boot try the following step: [...]

  Since you mentioned being an advanced user I skipped the most obvious reasons, such as the computer not being plugged in. But it never hurts to double check!

Answer 1

Actually, I use <sup> and <sub> to get the small text effect ^{_{that I love so dearly}}.

But real, honest-to-goodness <small> support would be nicer. For one thing, _{^{this is actually a bit too small...}}

Answer 2

If you can make it bigger

which

you

certainly

can

(to a degree)

then you certainly should

_{be allowed}

_{to make it smaller}

_{without resorting to semantically incorrect tagging and incorrect baselining!}

Answer 3

I sometimes abuse^† <sup> for the text of footnotes, which is not really needed for any other reason than to make a too long of an answer look shorter.

Hence, I'd prefer some Markdown's footnotes extension over <small>, especially as the semantics of a footnote could (one day) allow for different rendering (like tooltips, or like including links to jump back to where the footnote was referenced, Wikipedia-style, for very long answers...).

^† Of course, using <sup> for the footnote mark is not abusive, but for footnote text it is.

Answer 4

One use case for the <small> tag would be bibliographies at the bottom of posts for the scientific sites on the network. The references shouldn't dominate the post, so making the text for them a bit smaller is quite useful.

Using the <sup> tag as a hack to make text smaller has other problems as it does affect more than the font size. It's interactions with numbered or unordered lists is problematic at best, and it leads to strange line spacing in some instances. It also needs to be applied on a per paragraph base, not just around a whole list of references, which is more work.

As for balphas concern that the tag would be misused, we already have the <sub> and <sup> tags and they are widely known, so anyone inclined to misuse small text is probably already doing it.

An example bibliography hacked together with <sup> tags follows

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• ^{Dall’Olio, G. M. et al. Ten Simple Rules for Getting Help from Online Scientific Communities. PLoS Comput Biol 7, (2011).}

• ^{Watson, J. D. & Crick, F. H. C. Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid. Science 171, 737-738 (1953).}

Answer 5

First of all, <sup> and <sub> do not achieve the same effect, they are small but positioned different vertically as your post has rightly demonstrated.

I'm curious what would you need a small text for? Fine prints, disclaimers, foot notes? I don't see why these can't be displayed as normal sized text.

In anycase, I totally agree that using sup/sub for the sole purpose of making the text smaller is semantically incorrect.

Answer 6

I disagree. The only thing this is really used for is tongue-in-cheek emulation of the proverbial fine print, usually for something off-topic. That's okay on Meta, but discouraged on SO*, and it's used a lot less there. Allowing the "canonical" tag <small>, I fear, would lead to many more people being smart about the layout of the site. Shudder.

_{*Do you know SO? That's a great website, and I have even less rep there than here!}