[whatwg] [web-apps] 2.7.8 The i element
Matthew Thomas
mpt at myrealbox.com
Sat Apr 16 16:27:50 PDT 2005
Ian Hickson wrote:
>...
>>>yet there is something very different about that one -- it's the title
>>>of another work. I'd like to be able to style all such titles
>>>consistently, so they have to be marked up in some way.
>>
>>In that case, would you want to differentiate between ordinary titles
>>and real citations? Or is that something that the class attribute could
>>handle, if needed?
>
> I don't know. What do people think?
>...
I think distinguishing between ordinary titles and real citations is
untenable, because there's not a workable dividing line. Consider these
examples:
1. <p>My favorite book is <cite>The reality
dysfunction</cite> by Peter F. Hamilton. It begins: <q>Space
outside the attack cruiser <something>Beezling</something> tore open
in five places.</q></p>
3. <p>My favorite book is <somethingelse>The reality
dysfunction</somethingelse> by Peter F. Hamilton.</p>
Why should the title markup have suddenly changed? Do you expect the
editor of an online magazine's book reviews department, for example, to
have the presence of mind to change the title markup in the first
paragraph of a review if she happens to excise the last quote from
somewhere else in the review?
And where's the dividing line? Is this appropriate, for example?
2. ...
<html>
...
<title>Review: The reality dysfunction (page 1)</title>
...
<p>Peter F. Hamilton's <cite>The reality dysfunction</cite> is a
massive undertaking, perhaps too massive. It's not that it's 592
pages in the paperback edition, but...</p>
...
<!-- There happen to be no quotes on this page, but the author
doesn't know that ahead of time, because it's a CMS that's splitting
his review into pages. -->
...
<nav><a rel="next"...>→ Page 2</a></nav>
...
</html>
...
<html>
...
<title>Review: The reality dysfunction (page 2)</title>
...
<!-- the rest of the review -->
...
<p>From the first sentence — <q>Space outside the attack
cruiser <something>Beezling</something> tore open in five
places</q> — to the last, this book will keep you on the edge
of your seat.</p>
...
</html>
You're already very very lucky if an author bothers to use <cite>
instead of <i>, since they get zero presentational benefit from doing
so. Let's not make it harder.
--
Matthew Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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