- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:21:23 +0000 (UTC)
On Mon, 3 Aug 2009, Erik Vorhes wrote: > On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 6:29 AM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote: > > Not all titles are citations, actually. For example, I've heard of the > > /Pirates of Penzance/, but I'm not citing it, just mentioning it in > > passing. > > No, that actually is a citation, whether you realize it or not. You are > making reference to a musical and are therefore citing it, even in > passing. Your definition of "citation" is far looser than my dictionary's ("a quotation from or reference to"). In fact your definition seems to be basically the same as HTML5's -- a title of a work. Unless you think that this should be valid use of <cite>: <p>I picked up <cite>my favourite book</cite>, and put it next to <cite>the painting I got from my aunt</cite>.</p> I don't think that those references to works should use <cite>. Doing so has zero benefit, as far as I can tell. > > > See <http://www.four24.com/>; note near the top of the source: > > > <blockquote id="verse" cite="John 4:24">... > > > > My statement stands, on the aggregate: > > > > On Mon, 27 Jul 2009, Philip Taylor wrote: > > > > > > See http://philip.html5.org/data/cite-attribute-values.txt for some > > > data. (Looks like non-URI values are quite rare.) > > I agree that @cite is rarely used as anything other than a URI; I was > attempting to demonstrate that even very recent uses of HTML don't > necessarily "get" that it is for URIs (the site I referenced launched > last month, as I recall). Mistakes are common with HTML, sure. > > While we're at it, Philip had other data: > > > > > Also maybe relevant: see http://philip.html5.org/data/cite.txt for > > > some older data about <cite>. (Looks like non-title uses are very > > > common.) > > > > This seems to support my point that <cite> is used for a whole variety > > of purposes, like <em>, <i>, <q>, HTML4's <cite>, and HTML5's <cite>. > > Very few, actually much fewer than I had remembered from my last look > > at the data, are names of people, citations or otherwise. > > I actually took this information the other way, that there are indeed > other uses for <cite> out there beyond titles. I don't think anyone has argued otherwise. I've only argued that of the uses that <cite> is put to, the only ones that are common but have no other more appropriate elements (i.e. aren't flat out mistakes) are citations and titles, and not people's names. > > On Mon, 27 Jul 2009, Erik Vorhes wrote: > > > > > > > A new element wouldn't work in legacy UAs, so it wouldn't be as > > > > compelling a solution. Also, <cite> is already being used for this > > > > purpose. > > > > > > My preference would be for <cite> to retain the flexibility it has > > > in pre-HTML5 specifications, which would include referencing titles. > > > > The flexibility doesn't seem as useful as limiting it to titles. What > > is the problem solved by allowing names to be marked up in the same > > manner as titles? The problem solved by allowing titles specifically > > to be marked up is that titles are usually typographically offset from > > the surrounding text in a distinctive fashion. This doesn't apply to > > names. Reusing the same element for both encourages authors to use > > <cite> for both which makes it harder for them to get the right > > typographic effect, leading to a lower quality of typography overall. > > I think this is a bad thing. > > This is not just about names. It allows other (non-title) text to be > identified as a citation. If <cite> is identified as "title of work," > you can't cite many major orchestral arrangements at all, nor can you > cite legal decisions. Why not? An orchestral arrangement is a work, and has a title -- the spec explicitly lists "score", "song", and "opera" as possible works, for instance. I've added "legal case report" to the list, to clarify that you can use <cite> to name such reports. > Unless by "title of work" you mean "standard citation for an item, > usually its title"; but then <cite> really means what it is defined as > in the HTML 4.01 specification. Unless you have a very loose definition of "citation", or unless you consider a person to be a possible "source", <cite> in HTML5 is a strict superset of HTML4's definition. For example, the following is valid HTML5 but wouldn't be valid HTML4, since it's not a citation or reference to another source, but merely something mentioned in passing: <p>Today, as I was moving my copy of <cite>Dreamer's Void</cite>, I hurt my back.</p> > > > If backwards compatibility is that big a concern, why does HTML5 use > > > <legend> outside of <fieldset> elements? > > > > There were no existing elements that could be reused for many of the > > new semantics. When there were, we used them (e.g. <i>, <b>, <cite>, > > <menu>, <legend>, <h1>). > > I agree that there aren't always existing elements for the new semantics > included in HTML5, but I don't believe that backwards compatibility is > as big a concern as you claim it is. Ok. > HTML5's re-use of <legend>, for example, is completely broken in every > extant browser. Yeah, <legend> is a complicated case where a number of factors have prevented an ideal solution. (The alternative, introducing yet another element that means the same as <legend>/<label>/<caption>/<h1>/<th>/etc, is worse, on the long run, than simply waiting a few years to intoduce <figure> and <details>.) > Besides, there's already <tt>, which could be used to identify "title > text" or something like that. It has the wrong default styles. > > > > What is the pressing need for an element for citations, which > > > > would require that we overload <cite> with two uses? > > > > > > A title can be a citation, but not all citations are titles. What's > > > the pressing need for limiting <cite> only to titles? > > > > As described above, the need to have an element for titles is that > > there are typographic conventions that apply to titles. What is the > > pressing need for an element for citations, which would require that > > we overload <cite> with two uses? > > As I have said previously, there aren't consistent typographic > conventions that apply to titles. There are widely used conventions, though, for which <cite> has appropriate default styles. > The "pressing need" is that <cite> is already used to define citations. <cite> is also used to mark up titles that aren't citations, as shown by Philip's data. > There's no reason to limit it to a subset of citation (more below). I honestly don't understand how HTML5 is a subset of HTML4 here, unless you mean people's names, which as far as I can tell aren't commonly used with <cite>, and for which there is no benefit to using <cite>. > > But why does that have value? How would you use this information? > > To collect citation information. I don't see how that as any less value > that collecting titles of works, especially since not all works have > titles or means of reference that would constitute a conventional > "title." Virtually nobody either collects citation information _or_ collects titles of works. If that is the use case that we have to deal with, then please provide evidence that there is actually a significant need for this. So far I'm not aware of anyone actually doing this other than Mark Pilgrim, and he stopped doing it years ago. Currently, <cite> in HTML5 isn't for collecting anything, it's purely to provide a hook for styling. > > > >> > Note that HTML5 now has a more detailed way of marking up > > > >> > citations, using the Bibtex vocabulary. I think this removes > > > >> > the need for using the <cite> element in the manner you > > > >> > describe. > > > >> > > > >> Since this is supposed to be the case, why shouldn't HTML5 just > > > >> ditch <cite> altogether? (Aside from "backward compatibility," > > > >> which is beside the point of the question.) > > > > > > > > Backwards compatibility (with legacy documents, which uses it to > > > > mean "title of work") is the main reason. > > > > > > I'd beg to differ, regarding "legacy documents." See, for example > > > the automated citation generation at Wikipedia: > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_templates > > > > What specifically am I looking for here? This doesn't seem to have any > > relevance to HTML. > > Wikipedia automatically wraps citations in the <cite> element. View > source on any of the Example sections. Wikipedia's output is not an argument for consuming <cite>. In fact, what they're doing is an argument against keeping <cite> for that purpose: they are explicitly overriding the only behaviour <cite> gives them (italics) and then going out of their way to reintroduce that effect on a <span>! If that's not an argument for changing the meaning of <cite> to something more convenient, I don't know what is. > > > In addition, the comments at zeldman.com use <cite> to reference > > > authors of comments. While that specific example is younger than > > > HTML5, this is merely an example of a relatively common use-case for > > > <cite> that does not use it to signify "title of work." > > > > As I said, the most common use of <cite> is to mark up italics. I > > agree entirely that it's misused. > > I haven't said that it's misused. I apologize that you have > misunderstood me. I have repeatedly and consistently contended that > <cite> should be used for more than just titles. I believe that > Zeldman's use is perfectly appropriate and correctly used. I disagree. I view it as an example of semantic markup for the sake of it. We can be more helpful to authors. > > Blog commenters don't need to be marked up any differently than the > > number of the comment -- that's a stylistic issue that varies from > > blog to blog. I don't see the need for an element specifically for > > people commenting on blogs. In most blogs that I've seen, the name > > isn't even highlighted in any particular fashion. > > Again, this isn't just about citing people or "blog commenters"; this > was just an example of a current, non-title, and correct use of <cite> > according to current specifications. (And why does it matter if > something is particularly highlighted? Is HTML supposed to be a > presentational language? Why limit <cite> to the place of a > presentational element?) The only use case I'm aware of for <cite> is as a media-independent presentation hook, yes. > > > Existing tools that treat <cite> exclusively as "title of work" do > > > so against every HTML specification out there (i.e., HTML 4.01 and > > > earlier). > > > > Existing tools generally have had very few problems in finding ways to > > do things against every HTML specification out there. Over 90% of all > > content on the Web is syntactically invalid in some way, and I'm sure > > that more than 10% of content on the Web is generated by tools. > > Yes, and one of those tools is Wikipedia, which wraps entire citations > in the <cite> element, not just titles. It correctly follows current > HTML specifications in using <cite> to identify a citation. Upgrading Wikipedia to HTML5's definitions will simplify Wikipedia. This seems like a net win. > > > > Indeed, there is a lot of misuse of the element -- as alternatives > > > > for <q>, <i>, <em>, and HTML5's meaning of <cite>, in particular. > > > > > > > > Expanding it to cover the meanings of <q>, <i>, and <em> doesn't > > > > seem as useful as expanding it just to cover works. > > > > > > I believe you mean "limiting it just to cover works" here. > > > > I meant expanding it, since not all titles of works are citations. > > Any reference to a title of a work is by definition a citation. > Therefore you are limiting <cite> to a subset of citation. I disagree with your definition of "citation". > > As a first approximation, titles are italics, and names are not. I > > think that's a far closer approximation of typographical conventions > > than lumping titles and names together into one default style. > > This doesn't seem to be an issue for you with the reuse of <legend> in > another context, even though it is broken. So why is it an issue here? > (And again, titles are not always in italics.) <legend> is an example of the worst possible end result. It's not an example of best practice. It's an issue with <legend> also, there are just other factors at work there. > > I haven't changed the spec. I continue to hold the position that > > covering titles of works is more useful than covering titles of works > > and names of people, and more useful than covering only names of > > people or works that are explicitly cited. > > You are misconstruing my argument. This isn't about including names of > people; that is just the most obvious non-title form of citation. This > is about properly understanding what a citation can be and writing the > specification for the <cite> element to account for those possibilities. > Citations are references to works, people, etc. By limiting it to "title > of work" you are actually limiting it to a subset of a subset, as many > objects worth citing don't have conventional titles. Unless you can demonstrate that there is a concrete benefit to doing what you describe, I do not think it is a good idea. There are concrete benefits to the definition currently in HTML5, namely it provides a good first approximation of common typographic effects at a very low cost. On Mon, 3 Aug 2009, Jeremy Keith wrote: > Hixie asked: > > What is the problem solved by allowing names to be marked up in the > > same manner as titles? > > They are both entities being referenced (cited). It seems arbitrary to > me to forbid referencing names with the <cite> element. HTML 4 already > allows it, authors would have to change their existing behaviour > (something to be avoided wherever possible) and when the meanings of > other existing elements?<i>, <b>, <small>?are being *expanded*, I can't > follow the logic in *restricting* the meaning of an element already > being used broadly. As noted above, I believe that this is an expansion as well (I don't think HTML4's use of "source" was meant to include people). But in any case, what you describe here isn't a problem. What is the _problem_ solved by allowing names to be marked up in the same manner as titles? > > The problem solved by allowing titles specifically to be marked up is > > that titles are usually typographically offset from the surrounding > > text in a distinctive fashion. This doesn't apply to names. > > That's what CSS is for. CSS is optional. We need the media-independent layer to make sure that we get a reasonable rendering even without CSS. (Otherwise, why wouldn't we just be using <span> for everything?) > Okay, but it won't make any difference to authors like myself who will > continue to use <cite> to mark up names. > > We can do this either by applying a Kenobian interpretation of the spec > (e.g. a person is the work of their parents/peers/society and a person's > name is therefore a "title of work") The spec explicitly says people's names aren't titles of works. > When it comes to language features, the browser makers don't have to do > much?just make sure the element shows up in the DOM. However, if authors > refuse to implement a language feature as described in the spec, then > the spec becomes fiction. Agreed; that's why I base a lot of the spec on research about what authors are doing. In practice, most authors aren't marking up names with <cite>. > Authors use the <cite> element to mark up names. Only a small minority do. Certainly not enough to make this a language feature. > It is often the most semantically appropriate element for marking up a > name There is no need to mark up a name at all. > (and then in itself is a good enough reason to use it No, that's a cargo-cult approach to semantic markup. > I don't think it makes sense to ignore the existing behaviour of > authors. Existing behaviour of authors is not to mark up names with <cite>. > Authors such as myself will continue to use the <cite> element to mark > up names; our markup will still be conforming; validators won't flag up > our choices as errors. Your markup won't be conforming, though you are correct that the validator won't catch this error. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
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