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word choice - Synonyms for "content" in publishing


A document in a hypertext system (commonly "a web page") consists of navigation elements, advertising elements, and what a lot of authors call "content". The "content" carries the information for which the user is viewing the document in the first place. This term is medium-agnostic; it can refer to text, images, video, 3D models, or anything else that an author can include in a document. For example, the questions and answers on Stack Overflow or EL&U are "content".


Likewise, in video games, "content" refers collectively to all components other than the program itself, such as the meshes, textures, maps, and audio. For example, Id Software has long had a policy of making the program of its five-year-old video games free software, but not the rest. These games are sometimes called "free software with proprietary content".


However, one style guide published by a prominent organization in the free software community discourages use of the word "content", claiming it "disparages the works" by regarding them "as a commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money." The phrase "cultural works" has arisen as a general term for works of authorship other than computer programs, but it doesn't quite carry the meaning of "parts of a work other than infrastructure".


What better word than "content" exists to describe these concepts? I'm looking for something that will fit into the sentence "Interstitial video advertisements are acceptable in pages with video content and nowhere else."




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