[whatwg] the cite element

[Erik Vorhes]

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 4:09 AM, Smylers <Smylers at stripey.com> wrote:
> Erik Vorhes writes:
>
>> A use-case for "person's name" in the context of <cite>:
>>
>> In reference to many Classical texts one will often refer to the
>> author in lieu of the title (or in some cases that author's corpus).
>
> That isn't an argument for people's names _in general_ being marked up;
> it's an argument for marking them up in the specific case where they are
> used as (nicknames of) titles of works.


I never suggested otherwise. I want to be able to mark up names, etc.,
not just titles of works, with <cite> when the context is appropriate.
That is, I want to mark up these things when they function as an
attribution. (As I have previously detailed.)


>
>> E.g.:
>>
>> <p>You should read <cite>Herodotus</cite>.</p>
>
> That's using "Herodotus" as the title of a work.  In many fields it's
> common to refer to well-known works by nicknames, such as 'Smith &
> Thomas', 'The Dragon Book', 'The Red Book', or 'The White Album'.  So
> <cite> should be used for them.


I feel here that you're stretching the definition of "title of work"
beyond its usefulness. If we can use aliases within <cite>, great, but
that seems to make more apparent the usefulness of having <cite> be
for more than just "title of work." Indeed, titles of works and these
other examples more readily fall under the rubric of "something for
attribution." (I'm working on more specific wording but wanted to get
this out there.)


> But it doesn't follow that <cite> should be used for any other
> occurrences of those terms -- the people Smith and Thomas, or a book
> which just happens to be red.

Really? ;)


Erik