The WYSIWYG editor buttons still don't do what they say they do

[albins]

I know this has already been reported and discussed (#3606), and it was claimed that nothing was done because consensus wasn't reached. However, this was three years ago, and I think it would be worth discussing the matter again.

Since the <em> tag:

1. Doesn't mean the contained text should be italicized, and
2. has semantic meaning rather than visual,

using <i> one thousand times too often (slightly ugly but not technically wrong) would be better than using <em> once too much (actually technically wrong). Also, there should be no rush to stop using <i>, since XHTML has been cancelled (this was, as I understood ​the thread on the wp-hackers list, the main reason for using <em> rather than just going with <i>).

[scribu]

Related: #10753

[novasource]

Not sure I agree:

1. In the vast majority of cases, em and strong renders as italics and bold. How else would you represent them in a WYSIWYG editor?
2. B and I are not necessarily references to b and i tags. Their presence in desktop editors predates HTML.

[micasuh]

According to older HTML specs, <b> and <i> do not have semantic meaning and are purely presentational in value. In the working draft of HTML5, similarly to final drafts of XHTML 1.0, 1.1, and 5 (which do exist, will be supported for years to come, and upon which Wordpress' code is based) these tags must be used as a ​last ​resort.

While we debate the future of HTML and the direction in which it heads, <strong> and <em> should not lose functionality as default b and i buttons, respectively, in Wordpress considering what the specs say. These tags have semantic value, a proponent for using XHTML. Screen readers also recognize these tags correctly to properly emphasize their enclosed text audibly.

According to ​this video by Matt Cutts of Google, while <b> and <strong> have the same value according to Google, the W3 recommends using <strong> over <b>.

Since the <em> tag:

1. Doesn't mean the contained text should be italicized, and

The presentational view of the <em> tag is italicized by default.

2. has semantic meaning rather than visual,

This is the main argument for using <em> over <i>.

using <i> one thousand times too often (slightly ugly but not technically wrong) would be better than using <em> once too much (actually technically wrong).

Using <i> one thousand times too often will hurt semantic value 1000 times more than using <em> once too much.

Both of Wordpress' websites use the more semantic markup, XHTML, with presentation separate from content. It would be a step backwards to change the TinyMCE functionality to support the italics tag over the emphasize tag. Likewise with the bold tag over the strong tag.