Semantically correct tag to enclose a forum post

Question

In HTML 5 what's the tag that is supposed to enclose a forum post, being as semantically correct as possible?

• <div>
• <article>
• <section>
• Other?

Answer 1

I suppose <article> is best suited, see http://www.alistapart.com/articles/previewofhtml5 for an excellent reference document.

Answer 2

According to the Working Draft an article

The article element represents a self-contained composition in a document, page, application, or site and that is intended to be independently distributable or reusable, e.g. in syndication. This could be a forum post, a magazine or newspaper article, a blog entry, a user-submitted comment, an interactive widget or gadget, or any other independent item of content.

Answer 3

AS other mention above, <article>. But within that article you may want to split it up into sections (in <section>) as long as each section has a natural heading, otherwise don't.

e.g.
<article>
   <section>
      <header><h1>Introduction</h1></header>
      section content goes here
   </section>
   <section>
      <header><h1>Heading 1</h1></header>
      section content goes here
   </section>
   <section>
      <header><h1>Conclusion</h1></header>
      section content goes here
   </section>
</article>

Answer 4

I've always used <blockquote> for forum posts and blog comments. But <article> seems to be a good option too.