[Bug 22996] Modify blockquote element definition to allow citations

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=22996

--- Comment #11 from heydon <heydon@heydonworks.com> ---
(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> 
> > the spec says: 
>  [ snip ]
> > 'its nearest ancestor ... sectioning root element'.
> > 
> > I don't see why any change would need to be made to <footer. to make it
> > suitable for its use as a container for citation information, the only
> > change would be to the definition of blockquote.
> 
> However, the spec uses the exact same wording  ("nearest ancestor …
> sectioning root element" etc) about <header> and <h1>-<h6> elements as well.
> 
> So, when arguing based on what the spec says, we could also say that no
> change is needed for <h1>-<h6> and <header> - they can all be used to “talk
> about” the quotation.

"The <header> element represents a group of introductory or navigational aids."
(http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Elements/header)

Although header has a similar syntactical relationship to the "nearest
ancestor", semantically it means something quite different.

Footer is much more semantically apt since (like the related landmark
role="contentinfo") it has the purpose of clarification, like a "footnote".
Surely this is where citations (<cite>) are most at home?

Certainly <hn> and <header> are _about_ the body content of the relevant
section, but in an introductory faculty. 

Note that the footer definition does not require it to follow the body content
in source order (http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/footer.html). So, as with
<figcaption>, one could do

<blockquote>
   <footer>The following is an excerpt from <cite>Leif</cite>'s blog</footer>
   <p>Excerpt here...</p>
</blockquote>

The name "footer" is just a bit unfortunate :-)

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Received on Tuesday, 20 August 2013 09:12:33 UTC