[thelist] Valid form for meta tags?

[Edwin Horneij]

My meta tags look like this:

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

I am using the HTML 4.01 transitional doctype. When I run a page 
through the W3C HTML validator it gives the error message "character 
data is not allowed here", while seeming to indicate the forward slash 
closing my meta tags. I don't get this error with tags like

<br />

so I am confused. The text of the error message says nothing to me, but 
I suppose that just shows my ignorance. Are meta tags somehow special? 
Are they for some reason not supposed to be closed like the other 
non-paired HTML tags?

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Ed Horneij