Change back the semantics of <cite>

In the draft, the semantics of <cite> has been altered to not cover what 
it covered in HTML 4.

HTML 4:  "CITE: Contains a citation or a reference to other sources."

HTML 4 example: 
  As <CITE>Harry S. Truman</CITE> said,
   <Q lang="en-us">The buck stops here.</Q>
  More information can be found in <CITE>[ISO-0000]</CITE>.

HTML 5 draft, in contrast, explains in great detail how <cite> may only 
be used for the title of a work. Excerpt:

 "A person's name is not the title of a work — even if people call that
  person a  piece of work —  and the element must therefore not be
  used to mark up people's names. (In some cases, the b element might
  be appropriate for names; [...]"

I have just stumbled upon a problem in this regard when looking at the 
<dialog> element, where <cite> would be the right element for singling 
out the acting object:

  <dialog><dt><cite>Leif</cite>, HTMLwg member
                 <dd>I propose <dl dialog> instead
 </dialog>


Hence I propose the definition to change. The new text should say that 
<cite> is not a mark-up for "name" or "person". However, it is an 
element for marking up a source. And if the source is a person, then 
<cite> may indeed be used to mark up the reference to that person.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Thursday, 10 September 2009 18:35:08 UTC