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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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The h1 headline hooked me enough to read 2 sentences without noticing the disclaimer at the top. I was sorely disappointed that it was just slop.

One of my biggest criticisms of HTML and Markdown is how it renders h1 and the other headings. I really wish it could scale based on the depth of headings, such that a lone h1 rendered as the smallest heading, only getting larger when there were subheadings.

Now I wonder if CSS could do that...

One of my biggest criticisms of HTML and Markdown is how it renders h1 and the other headings.

Personally, I like to make all the headings have the same font size, and to denote section/pseudo-section hierarchy with padding/border/margin on the left. Example (also using the nonstandard h element, but with the proper accessibility attributes added)

I really wish it could scale based on the depth of headings, such that a lone h1 rendered as the smallest heading, only getting larger when there were subheadings. Now I wonder whether CSS could do that...

You can do something like section:not(:has(h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)) h1{font-size:inherit;}. But Markdown doesn't have provisions for section elements.