[whatwg] several messages about <cite>

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2008, Shannon wrote:
> 
> It's alternative because it attempts to actually "classify" something 
> rather than generically label it. I agree that class should only do the 
> first and I do this with my own code but most designers do not. As far 
> as the web design world is concerned class serves no purpose except as a 
> JS/CSS hook. If you give class="book" or class="movie" special meaning 
> or behaviour then you run the risk of clashing with existing 
> stylesheets.
> 
> Right now the mainstream web is "misusing" class. If you suddenly make 
> class meaningful then some sites are going to get stung and not 
> necessarily at any fault of their own - since the intellectual 
> distinctions between "labels" and "classes" is of no concern to somebody 
> putting pretty borders on a page.

We're not talking about making class meaningful. I'm not sure I understand 
what you are arguing against at this point.

The proposal is just that authors should use class="" to distinguish the 
various ways they use <i> so that they can (e.g.) style them differently. 
Where is the spec unclear? I should rewrite it to avoid any ambiguities.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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