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

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Anne van Kesteren wrote:

> See the specification? I mentioned the relevant bits in my original  
> message.
 
Ah I see now. Sorry Anne.

At the first sight, the blockquote spec sounds like it could work
without the cite attribute:

> If a blockquote element is preceeded or followed by a p element that
> contains a single cite element and is itself not preceeded or followed
> by another blockquote element and does not itself have a q element
> descendant, then, the citation given by that cite element gives the
> source of the quotation contained in the blockquote element. 

The q spec won't work however:

> If a q element is contained (directly or indirectly) in a paragraph
> that contains a single cite element and has no other q element
> descendants, then, the citation given by that cite element gives the
> source of the quotation contained in the q element.
 
What if, as is not at all uncommon, there are quotations from different
sources in the same paragraph?

One interesting problem associated shifting citation URIs into ordinary
anchor hyperlinks is that when authors link to individual fragments or
pages of resources this could lead to enormous proliferation of links.
That might make the current screen reader/talking browser model of
listing links problematic. On the other hand, I suppose screen
readers/talking browsers could prune lists by comparing URIs though that
somewhat changes the nature of the enterprise.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis