[whatwg] <blockquote cite> and <q cite>

[Elliotte Harold]

Anne van Kesteren wrote:

> So we can drop the unsupported cite="" attribute from both <blockquote> 
> and <q> or at least provide a way to have visual metadata. (I'm aware 
> cite="" is exposed in some way in some user agents, but that's not 
> really usable in any way...)

It's not just about user agents and their display. The cite attribute is 
a useful way of referencing the original source for purposes of 
attribution. I use it frequently.

Consider an academic book. You usually don;t bother to read all the end 
notes, but if there's one you're particularly interested in, you can 
always look it up. By contrast inline citation such as [Steven Jones, 
Facts and Theorems, p. 112, University press: New York] is distracting 
and unnecessary. The web is the same.

I know the Web has a real problem with source citation, plagiarism, and 
giving credit where credit is due. However removing one of the real 
tools we have to support appropriate citation is not going in the right 
direction.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo at metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/