[whatwg] Expanding the cite element

[Simpson, Grant Leyton]

On May 6, 2010, at 11:14 AM, Edward O'Connor wrote:
> 
> Consider how the above would work in legacy browsers, and then consider
> how this would work in them:
> 
> <p>As Ashley Crandall Amos says in <cite><a
> href="http://example.com/books/crandall/linguisticmeans">Linguistic Means of
> Determining the Dates of Old English Literary Texts</a></cite> ... Amos also
> mentions in <cite><a
> href="http://example.com/books/crandall/linguisticmeans">Linguistic
> Means</a></cite></p>

Ted, 

I'm almost satisfied with your approach except for three things:

1. Referencing something in the href attributed of an <a> tag implies that the URI will resolve to a URL, that is, that it will be accessible on the web at that address. Not every URI is a URL, though. That's what I was trying to do with a "uri" attribute for the <cite> tag is to identify the resource, not necessarily link to it.

2. We would have to formally define what <a> within <cite> means, otherwise we would leave the pairing up for interpretation. 

3. Are there instances where tags that can be used separately take on a different meaning in relation to one another?  I know what <li> means in relation to <ol> and <ul>, but then again, I can't really use <li> outside of either of those two.

Best,
Grant