Invalid Amperstands in URLs Cause Failure of XHTML Validity tests!

Oops, sorry I forgot the URL.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=htt...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&ss=1&group=0
(I will also email it)

is there any solution to this yet? it makes me sad to fail XHTML compliance all the time.

@db:
XHTML validation is important for a lot of things. First of all it is a set of standards for how webpages are to be coded. If nobody followed a set of standards we would still have sites with messages "best viewed in internet explorer in 640x480 resolution."

Encouraging the standards means that every webpage will load the same for everyone, regardless of browser. It also allows anyone looking at the code for my website to understand what I was trying to do.

valid XHTML is also important for search engine optimization, and speed of loading the page.

In this particular case it is not critical, as it only affects the comment section, but if i were to use an & in a hyperlink, it would not load correctly because the character code for an amperstand is &

here is a website talking about the problem of amperstands in URLs. http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validat...

@michael dang. well thank you for replying again

and wow I just realized only the first paragraph of my original post is here. that is really bad... In case it wasn't clear, all wordpress blogs using the intensedebate plugin to show a collapsed comments link on each post on the main page has this problem.

for example the following block on my main page has this issue:

< div class="comm">< a href="http://blog.aliencam.net/2008/07/lamy-vistasafari-cleaningdisassembly-guide/#respond" title="Comment on Lamy Vista/Safari Cleaning/Dis assembly Guide">< script src='http://www.intensed ebate.com/js /getCommentLink.php?acct=5abcb8a8b55ef0b354d41a6e2b24ab35&postid=504&posttitle=Lamy+Vista%2FSafari+Cleaning%2FDisassembly+Guide&posturl=http%3 A%2F%2Fblog.aliencam.net%2F2008%2F07%2Flamy-vistasafari-cleaningdisassembly-guide%2F&posttime=2008-07-15+01%3A51%3A23&postauthor=aliencam' type='tex t/javascript' defer='defer'></scri></ a></ div>

there is a "&posttime" in there, all that needs to be changed is that part of the url to "&posttime" and everything would be perfect.

LOL! that's my point exactly! our browsers automatically change "& amp ; " (sans spaces) to the "&" symbol in visible text. (or maybe getsatisfaction changed that... I did have to break up the code in the div tags in order for it to be visible...)

sorry for not noticing that before :P

eek I hate this! 100+ errors aahhhhh!

please devise a solution. i believe in you :P

wow someone else cares? wahoo!

and I did find another blog that this issue occurs on, it was the blog linked to in the "New Private Beta Opening Aug 24!" post, http://www.viewfromafarley.com/

Validation page: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=htt...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0

that blog uses the Wordpress IntenseDebate plugin with the comments on the front page, and "posttitle" is after an "&".

this link documents the solution: http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validat...

I am excited to see all the secret new features in the new WP IntenseDebate Plugin. I can't really think of anything that could be done better (except maybe XHTML validation lol). but all that is an unrelated topic.

I'd like throw out another vote for this still being a problem. I understand that it doesn't cause any huge problems, but for a site like mine about web design, it really would be preferable if these validation errors could be fixed. It's just unencoded ampersands...

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=htt...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.606

actually the problem is easy to fix for the intensedebate developer. just change & to & and it will fix this. IntenseDebate should look into this seriously if they want more users to use their plugin.

I just deactivate mine and will just forget about intensedebate for now until they really solved the problem.

I don't have an URL. I was notified of an invalid one. How can I participate with out one? Please help.

Gary

I wanted to give a comment to Pres Elect Obama and I end up here. Whats up? I feel disconnected from that desired process! Please help.