Re: [whatwg] <time>

Robert J Burns 2009-03-16 20.47:
> On Mar 16, 2009, at 8:49 AM, Mikko Rantalainen wrote:

> The conversion of dates is up for debate in historical, 
> anthropological and theological circles (among others). So by forcing 
> all dates into a converted Gregorian form, we are forcing authors to 
> lose data when they encode a date in HTML. I don't see any reason we 
> should force authors to encode lossy dates. Implementations may convert 
> the encoded dates from one calendar to another for presentational 
> purposes or to make comparisons between dates, but we should provide 
> authors a lossless way to encode those dates.

That the ISO date conversion may be disputed is not an issue, 
unless authors are forced to add @datetime (or @isotime, as it 
would be much clearer to name it.)

But else, the problems that you rightly point out is a reason to 
specify the *effect* of @datetime. E.g. to what extent can it work 
as something that clarfies an ambiguously written date? It may be 
a help, for the time and period where the Gregorian has been an 
international standard. (Since 1875 definitely, and in the 
Catholic World since 1582 etc.)

> [[allow alternate calendar representations without conversion helps ease 
> the burden on authors and helps decrease the number of errors]]

The title attribute can be specified to handle this very important 
issue. A new attribute to hold the original date could also work, 
however, authors are allready familiar with @title.

This would mean that the Microformats abbr-design pattern, can 
continue, with some modifications.

Specifically, it should be stated that <time> can be used without 
@datetime, and that @title then should contain the date in the 
original calendar and time format.

@title must be treates more or less as in <abbr> and be rendered 
together with @isotiime/@datetime.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Tuesday, 17 March 2009 00:14:05 UTC