Using the XHTML closing slash (/) on normal tags?

Question

I was just wondering whether it is acceptable to close a common tag, eg. a which requires no data using the XHTML closing slash to reduce markup.

Answer 1

No you can't do that, span is not self-closing tag. Here are the self closing tags:

<area />
<base />
<basefont />
<br />
<hr />
<input />
<img />
<link />
<meta />

Answer 2

No. What are all the valid self-closing elements in XHTML (as implemented by the major browsers)?

Answer 3

There are empty or self-closing tags. Span is not one of them.

http://justinsomnia.org/2005/12/there-are-only-10-legal-xhtml-empty-tags/