if you work in a shared codebase then PLEASE just follow whatever convention they have decided on, for the sake of everyone’s sanity.

That goes without saying; I'm not a barbarian.

“readability” is subjective. much like how there is no objective definition of “clean code”.

Did you not see the part where I said it's less readable "in my opinion"?

i am insisting that people use a common standard regardless of your opinion on it.

I can read this one of two ways: either you're making an assertion about what people are currently doing, or you're telling me/others what to do. In the first case, you're wrong. I've seen many examples of self-closed tags in the open source projects I've contributed to and/or read through. In the second case, IDGAF about your opinion. When I contribute to an existing project I'll do what they do, but if I'm the lead engineer starting a new project I'll do what I think is the most readable unless the team overwhelmingly opposes me, 'standards' be damned, your opinion be damned.

The spec says self-closing is "unnecessary and has no effect of any kind" and "should be used only with caution". That does not constitute a specification nor a standard - it's a recommendation. And I don't find that compelling. I'm not going to be a prima donna. I'm not going to force my opinions on a project I'm contributing to or a team I'm working with, but if I'm the one setting the standards for a project, I'm going to choose the ones that make the most sense to me.