[whatwg] Expanding the cite element

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:33 PM, Simpson, Grant Leyton <glsimpso at indiana.edu>
wrote:
> 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.

I'm not opposed to adding @cite to <cite> but note that when you are
identifying a resource rather than linking to a resource, you could use
microdata or RDFa.

For example:

   http://dev.w3.org/html5/md/#global-identifiers-for-items

   http://rdfa.info/wiki/Rdfa-microdata-markup-comparison#Book_markup_with_ISBN_and_description

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

You stated that you want to "indicate a location for a work (or information
about the work)".

A hyperlink indicates the location of an item or information about an item, and
"a href" creates a hyperlink.

What could be the other interpretations of <cite><a href="...">Work
title</a></cite> or <a href="..."><cite>Work title</cite></a> other than that
the hyperlink locates the work or information about the work?

> 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.

I think the combination of "cite" and "a" to indicate a work title and the
location of the work or information about the work does not involve changing
the meaning of either "cite" or "a". This is the markup equivalent of:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_composition

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis