On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 6:33 PM, David Workman <workm...@gmail.com> wrote: > I don't know about others, but that just looks ugly to me (the repetition of > 'cite' looks unnecessary). I know elegance isn't crucial, but given the > choice between <cite for=""> and <cite cite=""> I'd go for the former. > > As a possibility though, <cite> could have a 'for' attribute in the same > manner as a label and also support a 'src' attribute to link the element to > the original source, giving: > <cite for="aside-id" src="uri"> > What browsers do with the src attribute can be decided later, but it could > easily be used as a more semantically meaningful <a> tag where appropriate. Well, I don't exactly mind the repetition of "cite", though @for is probably better as it's an existing attribute and already serves the same purpose.
@src, however, should really only be used for replaced content. It does not mean "source" in the sense of attribution, but in the sense of derivation. I like the idea but I'd go for @href instead, e.g.: <p>As <cite for="gettysburg" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/abrahamlincoln/">Abraham Lincoln</cite> said, <q id="gettsyburg">Four score and seven years ago ...</q></p> <p><cite href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800080/">The Incredible Hulk</cite> (2008) is a reboot of <cite href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286716/">Hulk</cite> (2003).</p> @href creates an explicit link to the work or author being cited (whereas <a> creates an arbitrary one). Whether this is displayed as a traditional hyperlink or merely as a "more info" context menu, etc. should be up to the UA. If it is rendered as a link though, surrounding links should probably take precedence, i.e.: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln"><cite href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/abrahamlincoln/">Abraham Lincoln</cite></a> ...would point to Wikipedia, and not the White House. I'm not exactly sure that @for belongs on <cite> though, as the relationship of author-to-quote is more often one-to-many than one-to-one. It would be cumbersome and redundant for document authors to have to specify the name every time in full just to create an explicit association between the two. For instance, in a list of famous quotes by Abraham Lincoln: <ul> <li> <q id="gettsyburg">Four score and seven years ago ...</q> --<cite for="gettysburg" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/abrahamlincoln/">Abraham Lincoln</cite> </li> <li> <q id="fool">Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.</q> --<cite for="fool">Abraham Lincoln</cite> </li> </ul> is not as efficient as: <h1>List of Quotes by <cite id="abe-lincoln">Abraham Lincoln</cite></h1> <ul> <li> <q id="gettsyburg" for="abe-lincoln">Four score and seven years ago ...</q> </li> <li> <q id="fool" for="abe-lincoln">Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.</q> </li> </ul> Dialogs would also benefit from this, as in: <cite id="pete">Pete</cite>: <q for="pete">I'm joining a gang.</q> <cite id="meredith">Meredith</cite>: <q for="meredith">You can't!</q> <cite>Pete</cite>: <q for="pete">Don't try to stop me.</q> Of course the downside to that is being unable to create a relationship between all of a speaker's quotes and attributions without inventing superfluous @ids. For that I propose an "alias" attribute for <cite> which allows it to represent another instance of that same attribution: <cite id="pete">Pete</cite>: <q for="pete">I'm joining a gang.</q> <cite id="meredith">Meredith</cite>: <q for="meredith">You can't!</q> <cite alias="pete">Pete</cite>: <q for="pete">You can't stop me.</q> which would also be useful in the informal abbreviation of titles of works: <h1><cite id="borat" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443453/">Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan</cite> (2006)</h1> <h2>My Review</h2> <p><cite alias="borat">Borat</cite> is a hilarious film about...</p>