Re: the cite element definition

I'd like to see a re-examination of the <cite> element. I think the arguments raised by Jeremy Keith and others support such a re-examination. Based on common usage in web and non-web contexts, both people and works are commonly cited as the source of this or that quote or bit of information. 

If <cite> can be used to refer to a speaker, an author, or the title of a work, isn't it more generally an indicator of an act of referencing, as opposed to representing the title of a work or the name of a speaker/author? In which case, what about using <cite> to wrap a complete bibliographic entry, as opposed to only the author or the title of the work referenced in that entry?

I also wonder if there's a reasonable use case for some kind of linking mechanism on the <cite> element, in the same way the @cite attribute works for <q> and <blockquote>. For instance, I might want to refer to or paraphrase an author and/or work using <cite> but without explicitly quoting using <q cite=""> or <blockquote cite="">, and without directly linking to the relevant work. In that case, using <cite> and being able to include a programmatic reference to the online source might be useful.


--
Jason Kiss




On 17/02/2013, at 12:25 AM, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:

> HI all,
> 
> I have grepped the latest data set available (Dec 2012) at http://webdevdata.org (35,000 of top 50,000 web site home pages)
> 
> The results are available: http://www.html5accessibility.com/HTML5data/cite.html (WARNING! 6mb HTML file)
> 
> <cite|</cite> = 15452 matches in 465 files. 35823 files searched
> 
> glancing at the results appears to indicate that <cite> persons name </cite> is common usage.
> 
> 
> regards
> 
> SteveF
> 
> On 14 February 2013 09:59, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all, 
> 
> There appears to be divergent opinion on the current definition of the <cite>[1] element:
> 
> http://24ways.org/2009/incite-a-riot/
> 
> http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Cite_element
> 
> 
> As I was pinged about it by a developer, thought it would be useful to bring it to the list for discussion.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> Is there any basis for re-examining the defitnition? i.e. use cases, usage data
> 
> If yes, is there any interest in doing so?
> 
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/text-level-semantics.html#the-cite-element
> -- 
> with regards
> 
> Steve Faulkner
> 
> 
> 
>