New feature for <a>nchors

We know that there are broken links all over the web. We also know that  
webpages' content can be updated with time, or change completely.

What I'm suggesting, for HTML and/or XHTML, is adding an attribute for  
<a/> elements to contain a date value. What comes to my mind immediately  
is datetime="", but as I understand in XHTML2's Edit module, that  
attribute is already taken for other purposes and can be added on any  
element.

Adding a date in anchors, as metadata, makes it clear when the link to the  
external resource was added. This way, the user won't be confused if the  
external resource's content doesn't match the hyperlink he/she followed:  
checking the date of the hyperlink's creation/insertion (or for how much  
time passed when it has been done) would be provided by the user agent. Of  
course, that metadata can be specified in the content, like what is done  
in the Wikipedia articles' references, but I'm sure this belongs more as a  
metadata information.

So, either
1. exploit datetime="" in <a/> elements in the upcoming HTML language  
(because it's only used in <ins/> and <del/>),
2. or make a new name for it in the upcoming XHTML, like hrefdate="" that  
can be used in any element (since any element can contain a href=""),
3. or call it hrefdate="" for both languages.

-- 
Yahia Chlyeh
<http://yahia.ma/>

Received on Saturday, 22 September 2007 17:13:48 UTC