Working on ruby glosses, I think it is quite useful to say in the prose of CO things like “the following example” or “the example above”. I note that the “Examples” subsection of the “Style Notes” section of TCW 20 (why don’t these <div>s have IDs?) says in the very first paragraph not to do that. However, it is clear to me that the rest of that paragraph is about examples in tagdocs, not examples in the prose of the Guidelines. Furthermore, I think the logic (someone might come along later and add an example) at best does not really apply here in the prose (where being able to differentiate examples is useful), and at worst is basically silly. (I very vaguely remember the argument in favor of this restriction, and begrudgingly agreeing to it; but I cannot find the reasoning that led me to that agreement now, nor can I recall if it was intended for only tagdocs or for examples in the prose, too :-)

That said, why don’t we have a mechanism for referring to specific examples?