Nesting information tags

[Adam H. Kerman]

I find it helpful to use the <cite> tag, leaving rendering of a citation
up to the browser (typically italic).

Is there guidance on nesting an information tag like <cite>? Suppose it's
also the name of a link. Which goes inside, the <cite> tag or the <a> tag?

Technically it doesn't seem to make a difference, but I was just curious
what was intended structurally.

No, I don't care to use a title attribution in lieu of the cite tag.
That always seemed more redundant than helpful.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

4.11.2015, 21:41, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

> I find it helpful to use the <cite> tag, leaving rendering of a citation
> up to the browser (typically italic).

The <cite> tag is useless. In practice, it is just a more verbose and
misleadingly named synonym for <i>. All that browsers do with it is that
they render the element content in italic if possible (or maybe in faux
italic, i.e. as algorithmically slanted).

The definitions of <cite> have been so vague and varying in HTML
specifications that any guess on the “semantics” intended by the author
is a shot in the dark. So we have no reason to expect browsers to change
the behavior.

> Is there guidance on nesting an information tag like <cite>? Suppose it's
> also the name of a link. Which goes inside, the <cite> tag or the <a> tag?

Assuming that the content is the name of a book (one of the “semantic”
possibilities), would you say that you have link where the link text is
a name of a book or that you have a name of a book that contains a link?
But this is really irrelevant.

> Technically it doesn't seem to make a difference, but I was just curious
> what was intended structurally.

It can make a difference when style sheets are involved. When elements
are nested, the content is primarily rendered according to rules for the
innermost element.

> No, I don't care to use a title attribution in lieu of the cite tag.

I have no idea of what you mean by that.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Adam H. Kerman]

Jukka K. Korpela <jkor...@cs.tut.fi> wrote:
>4.11.2015, 21:41, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>>I find it helpful to use the <cite>tag, leaving rendering of a citation
>>up to the browser (typically italic).

>The <cite> tag is useless.

I found it a useful information element, even added a style like it in
word processing. As the author, it makes it easier to find citations
I'm including.

>In practice, it is just a more verbose and misleadingly named synonym for
><i>. All that browsers do with it is that they render the element content
>in italic if possible (or maybe in faux italic, i.e. as algorithmically
>slanted).

Right. As long as browsers render it usefully by default, that's fine with
me. The reader has the option of rendering <cite> in color, say, if he
wants to make picking them out easier. I'm sure few who aren't copy
editing would do that.

This is all tangential to my question. I've already made the decision
to use the tag.

>The definitions of <cite> have been so vague and varying in HTML
>specifications that any guess on the "semantics" intended by the author
>is a shot in the dark. So we have no reason to expect browsers to change
>the behavior.

I've read a little about it. It was expanded in 4.01 spec to allow
personal names to be tagged. That's not a citation, but some authors
were doing it and demanded that the expansion get put back into
HTML5, which had been written to limit its use to genuine citations of titles.

>>Is there guidance on nesting an information tag like <cite>? Suppose it's
>>also the name of a link. Which goes inside, the <cite> tag or the <a> tag?

>Assuming that the content is the name of a book (one of the "semantic"
>possibilities), would you say that you have link where the link text is
>a name of a book or that you have a name of a book that contains a link?
>But this is really irrelevant.

It could be a link to the actual contents, so the reader can see the
source material, or it could be a link to a description of the material,
if I didn't cite it as the source of what I'd written but as a general
reference.

>>Technically it doesn't seem to make a difference, but I was just curious
>>what was intended structurally.

>It can make a difference when style sheets are involved. When elements
>are nested, the content is primarily rendered according to rules for the
>innermost element.

I see your point.

Assume no CSS. Have you ever read any advice anywhere that one tag should
be nested within the other?

>>No, I don't care to use a title attribution in lieu of the cite tag.

>I have no idea of what you mean by that.

Something like

<a title="Example documentation" href="http://example.com/">Example documentation</a>

The text might show up as tooltip text in the browser when hovering.
I didn't have a use for it.

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Adam H. Kerman wrote:

> I find it helpful to use the <cite> tag, leaving rendering of a citation
> up to the browser (typically italic).

Non sequitur. You can format “cite” elements in any way you want using CSS.
But you need to take care to reset likely presets, and you need to be aware
that user stylesheets always take precedence.

> Is there guidance on nesting an information tag like <cite>? Suppose it's
> also the name of a link. Which goes inside, the <cite> tag or the <a> tag?

Your terminology is incorrect. Please read the HTML Specifications on the
difference between elements and tags, and on names.

> Technically it doesn't seem to make a difference, but I was just curious
> what was intended structurally.

Given that a citation can be a hyperlink but does not have to be, I would
have made the “cite” _element_ the child element of the “a” _element_.
However, the HTML5 Specification has an example that also makes sense: A
textual hyperlink to a date within a citation. Since it is a syntax error
to nest “a” elements in other “a” elements, it has to be the other way
around then.

There appear to be more examples in the HTML5 Specification that have an “a”
element as child of a “cite” element. Although examples are not normative,
this is probably the best approach.

<http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/text-level-semantics.html#the-cite-element>

> No, I don't care to use a title attribution in lieu of the cite tag.
> That always seemed more redundant than helpful.

Did you mean “‘title’ _attribute_”?

If so: Different to a “cite” element, a “title” attribute has no specific
semantics attached. Consider an application that scans Web documents for
citations and lists them at the end of the chapter or document. This would
have nothing to do with a potential pointer cursor hovering over an element,
for example. That said, I have neglected the “cite” element in my documents
as well until now; that is probably going to change.


PointedEars
--
realism: HTML 4.01 Strict
evangelism: XHTML 1.0 Strict
madness: XHTML 1.1 as application/xhtml+xml
-- Bjoern Hoehrmann

[Adam H. Kerman]

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <dci...@PointedEars.de> wrote:
>Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>>I find it helpful to use the <cite> tag, leaving rendering of a citation
>>up to the browser (typically italic).

>Non sequitur.

Your life is a non sequitur.

>You can format "cite" elements in any way you want using CSS.
>But you need to take care to reset likely presets, and you need to be
>aware that user stylesheets always take precedence.

I prefer not to format it.

>>Is there guidance on nesting an information tag like <cite>? Suppose it's
>>also the name of a link. Which goes inside, the <cite> tag or the <a> tag?

>Your terminology is incorrect. Please read the HTML Specifications on the
>difference between elements and tags, and on names.

Who gives a fuck. You're giving me a headache, so the rest is deleted. It
wasn't especially helpful.

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Adam H. Kerman wrote:

> Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <dci...@PointedEars.de> wrote:
>>Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>I find it helpful to use the <cite> tag, leaving rendering of a citation
>>>up to the browser (typically italic).
>
>>Non sequitur.
>
> Your life is a non sequitur.

I have not given you reason to be unkind. In fact, I have given you a lot
of reasons not to.

>>You can format "cite" elements in any way you want using CSS.
>>But you need to take care to reset likely presets, and you need to be
>>aware that user stylesheets always take precedence.
>
> I prefer not to format it.

If that is your decision.

>>>Is there guidance on nesting an information tag like <cite>? Suppose it's
>>>also the name of a link. Which goes inside, the <cite> tag or the <a>
>>>tag?
>
>>Your terminology is incorrect. Please read the HTML Specifications on the
>>difference between elements and tags, and on names.
>
> Who gives a fuck. You're giving me a headache, so the rest is deleted. It
> wasn't especially helpful.

You did not even try to understand. Your loss.


PointedEars
--
Danny Goodman's books are out of date and teach practices that are
positively harmful for cross-browser scripting.
-- Richard Cornford, cljs, <cife6q$253$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk> (2004)

[Adam H. Kerman]

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <dci...@PointedEars.de> wrote:
>Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <dci...@PointedEars.de> wrote:
>>>Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>>>>I find it helpful to use the <cite> tag, leaving rendering of a citation
>>>>up to the browser (typically italic).

>>>Non sequitur.

>>Your life is a non sequitur.

>I have not given you reason to be unkind. In fact, I have given you a lot
>of reasons not to.

You're annoying. You're right; I didn't edit my post to correct the
terminology. Who gives a fuck; it had nothing to do with what I asked.

>>>You can format "cite" elements in any way you want using CSS.
>>>But you need to take care to reset likely presets, and you need to be
>>>aware that user stylesheets always take precedence.

>>I prefer not to format it.

>If that is your decision.

I am aware it's my decision as I'm the guy marking up the Web page.

The rest deleted. You're not going to tell me anything useful.

[Osmo Saarikumpu]

On 5.11.2015 0:17, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>
>> I find it helpful to use the <cite> tag, leaving rendering of a citation
>> up to the browser (typically italic).
>

> Non sequitur.You can format “cite” elements in any way you want using CSS.

> But you need to take care to reset likely presets, and you need to be aware
> that user stylesheets always take precedence.

Non sequitur? I must be missing something here, because your reply here
sounds like gibberish.

>> Is there guidance on nesting an information tag like <cite>? Suppose it's
>> also the name of a link. Which goes inside, the <cite> tag or the <a> tag?
>
> Your terminology is incorrect. Please read the HTML Specifications on the
> difference between elements and tags, and on names.

ACK.

>> Technically it doesn't seem to make a difference, but I was just curious
>> what was intended structurally.
>
> Given that a citation can be a hyperlink but does not have to be, I would
> have made the “cite” _element_ the child element of the “a” _element_.

Given that a hyperlink can be a citation but does not have to be I would
have made... a non sequitur?

> However, the HTML5 Specification has an example that also makes sense: A
> textual hyperlink to a date within a citation. Since it is a syntax error
> to nest “a” elements in other “a” elements, it has to be the other way
> around then.

Sorry, but this sounds more like nonsense than non sequitur. No wonder
the OP's head hurts :)

> There appear to be more examples in the HTML5 Specification that have an “a”
> element as child of a “cite” element. Although examples are not normative,
> this is probably the best approach.

>> No, I don't care to use a title attribution in lieu of the cite tag.
>> That always seemed more redundant than helpful.
>
> Did you mean “‘title’ _attribute_”?
>
> If so: Different to a “cite” element, a “title” attribute has no specific
> semantics attached.

You are mistaken, the title attribute has even more semantics than the
cite element, if possible :) See for yourself, e.g.:

<http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-html5-20110525/elements.html#the-title-attribute>

The question is, as Mr. Korpela pointed out: are the semantics relevant?

--
Best wishes, Osmo

[Barry Margolin]

In article <n1g700$2cj$1...@dont-email.me>,

Osmo Saarikumpu <os...@weppipakki.com> wrote:

> Non sequitur? I must be missing something here, because your reply here
> sounds like gibberish.

Please ignore the pointed-eared one. He's this groups resident troll.

--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

You are not going to even acknowledge the possibility (which is in fact a
certainty to anyone who can read) that I posted something that was useful.
It was not useful to you because, in terms that your puny closed mind is
able to comprehend, you are way too stupid and self-deluded to realize that.

So, in terms that your puny closed mind is able to comprehend, FOAD.

--
PointedEars

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Osmo Saarikumpu wrote:

> On 5.11.2015 0:17, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>> Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>> I find it helpful to use the <cite> tag, leaving rendering of a citation
>>> up to the browser (typically italic).
>>
>> Non sequitur.You can format “cite” elements in any way you want using
>> CSS. But you need to take care to reset likely presets, and you need to
>> be aware that user stylesheets always take precedence.
>
> Non sequitur? I must be missing something here, because your reply here
> sounds like gibberish.

“Non sequitur” is Latin for “it does not follow”. It means that an argument
made lacks internal consistency. HTH.

>>> Technically it doesn't seem to make a difference, but I was just curious
>>> what was intended structurally.
>>
>> Given that a citation can be a hyperlink but does not have to be, I would
>> have made the “cite” _element_ the child element of the “a” _element_.
>
> Given that a hyperlink can be a citation but does not have to be I would
> have made... a non sequitur?

No. One approach is that you wrap that which you want to turn into a
hyperlink in an “a” element with a “href” attribute. The former would be
the “cite” element here. But “I would have made” (subjunctive mood)
indicates to all who can and want to read English that what I describe in
the following had raised my doubts about my original approach.

>> However, the HTML5 Specification has an example that also makes sense: A
>> textual hyperlink to a date within a citation. Since it is a syntax
>> error to nest “a” elements in other “a” elements, it has to be the other
>> way around then.
>
> Sorry, but this sounds more like nonsense than non sequitur. No wonder
> the OP's head hurts :)

Perhaps you want to take more English lessons.

>>> No, I don't care to use a title attribution in lieu of the cite tag.
>>> That always seemed more redundant than helpful.
>> Did you mean “‘title’ _attribute_”?
>>
>> If so: Different to a “cite” element, a “title” attribute has no specific
>> semantics attached.
>
> You are mistaken, the title attribute has even more semantics than the
> cite element, if possible :) See for yourself, e.g.:
>
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-html5-20110525/elements.html#the-title-attribute>

There is nothing in the hopelessly outdated, non-normative resource that you
cite that supports your opinion.

,-<http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/dom.html#the-title-attribute>
|
| The title attribute represents advisory information for the element, such
| as would be appropriate for a tooltip. […]

What kind of “advisory information” is not defined. So, AISB, the attribute
has no *specific* semantics. Also:

| Warning! Relying on the title attribute is currently discouraged as many
| user agents do not expose the attribute in an accessible manner as
| required by this specification (e.g. requiring a pointing device such as a
| mouse to cause a tooltip to appear, which excludes keyboard-only users and
| touch-only users, such as anyone with a modern phone or tablet).

> The question is, as Mr. Korpela pointed out: are the semantics relevant?

The record shows that Mr. Korpela is opposed without either sufficient
reason or convincing argument to any kind of semantic markup, so I do not
consider his opinion valuable on this matter to begin with.


PointedEars
--
var bugRiddenCrashPronePieceOfJunk = (
navigator.userAgent.indexOf('MSIE 5') != -1
&& navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mac') != -1
) // Plone, register_function.js:16

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Barry Margolin wrote:

> Osmo Saarikumpu <os...@weppipakki.com> wrote:
>> Non sequitur? I must be missing something here, because your reply here
>> sounds like gibberish.
>
> Please ignore the pointed-eared one. He's this groups resident troll.

Ignorance must be bliss.


PointedEars
--
Use any version of Microsoft Frontpage to create your site.
(This won't prevent people from viewing your source, but no one
will want to steal it.)
-- from <http://www.vortex-webdesign.com/help/hidesource.htm> (404-comp.)

[Osmo Saarikumpu]

On 5.11.2015 21:14, Barry Margolin wrote:
> In article <n1g700$2cj$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Osmo Saarikumpu <os...@weppipakki.com> wrote:
>
>> Non sequitur? I must be missing something here, because your reply here
>> sounds like gibberish.
>
> Please ignore the pointed-eared one. He's this groups resident troll.

Right. Sorry.

--
Best wishes, Osmo

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Reading this, I am inclined to remove your name from the contributors list
of the FAQ for comp.lang.javascript, but different from you I do not allow
my actions to be guided by irrationality, and I am not an opportunist that
is howling with the wolves whenever it appears convenient. I am not going
to read one more of your pointless follow-ups, though. I have better things
to do than to talk sense into such wannabes who prefer to suck up to a bully
instead of listening to a sound argument.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

4.11.2015, 23:27, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>> The <cite> tag is useless.
>
> I found it a useful information element, even added a style like it in
> word processing. As the author, it makes it easier to find citations
> I'm including.

From the mid-1990’s, I have used <cite> a lot as a matter of principle,
and I often still continue the practice. But it’s really a bad habit. My
original motivation was that <cite> was “semantic” and might some day be
used by browsers or search engines in a useful way. But nothing
happened, except that the semantics blew up. HTML specifications and
drafts have defined it in different, mutually incompatible ways, and
HTML5 makes the definition very odd and confused.

Compare
<cite>The origin of species</cite>
with
<i class=title>The origin of species</i>
The latter is more flexible, since you can assign different classes to
different types of citations.

And for citations that should not be rendered in italic by default, just
use <span> instead of <i>.

> As long as browsers render it usefully by default, that's fine with
> me.

Whether it is useful depends on whether italic is suitable. Surely there
are many types of citations where it is not, depending on your
definition for “citation”.

> The reader has the option of rendering <cite> in color, say, if he
> wants to make picking them out easier.

That’s rather theoretical. Very few users write user style sheets. (I
suppose by “reader” you meant a person reading the page.) And what would
be the point of coloring <cite> elements when authors use <cite> in
inconsistent ways?

> It was expanded in 4.01 spec to allow
> personal names to be tagged.

This illustrates how vague the concept of “citation” is. And since we
normally don’t want to italicize personal names, or those that are
“cited”, the idea means that you use an element with italicizing as its
only real effect, yet don’t want italic.

> Assume no CSS. Have you ever read any advice anywhere that one tag should
> be nested within the other?

There is advice on nesting, but I suppose you mean specifically nesting
<cite> and <a>. This can be regarded as a special case of nesting <a>
and other text-level markup, e.g. <strong><a ...>...</a></strong> versus
<a ...><strong>...</strong></a>. No, I don’t think I’ve ever read any
advice on this. In practice, the important thing is to be consistent and
to take your decision into account when designing your style sheet.

>>> No, I don't care to use a title attribution in lieu of the cite tag.
>
>> I have no idea of what you mean by that.
>
> Something like
>
> <a title="Example documentation" href="http://example.com/">Example documentation</a>

Oh, I see, you meant the title=... attribute. It’s role is very
different from that of <cite>. Opinions disagree on its usefulness.
Usability experts have favored it, but I think the world has changed
now. The browser implementations of title=... are awful: tiny text,
disappearing too soon, and an author can do nothing to help this (users
could do, but very few people know how to change the font size in
“tooltips”).

“CSS tooltips” have largely made the title=... attribute outdated.


--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> 4.11.2015, 23:27, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>> The <cite> tag is useless.
>> I found it a useful information element, even added a style like it in
>> word processing. As the author, it makes it easier to find citations
>> I'm including.
>
> From the mid-1990’s, I have used <cite> a lot as a matter of principle,
> and I often still continue the practice. But it’s really a bad habit. My
> original motivation was that <cite> was “semantic” and might some day be
> used by browsers or search engines in a useful way. But nothing
> happened, except that the semantics blew up. HTML specifications and
> drafts have defined it in different, mutually incompatible ways, and
> HTML5 makes the definition very odd and confused.

That is FUD and your logic is flawed (red herring).

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear>


First of all, working drafts of W3C documents are not normative. Take, for
example, the current working draft of the HTML 5.1 Specification:

,-<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-html51-20151008/>
|
| Status of this document
|
| […]
| Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C
| Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or
| obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this
| document as other than work in progress.

(The latter paragraph is contained in every document in Working Draft status
that is published by the W3C.)

You have cited working drafts “as other than work in progress”. That is by
definition “inappropriate”. Wordings in working drafts are therefore
irrelevant regarding the use of the “cite” element, to begin with.

<https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal>


Second, the semantics of the “cite” element has not changed in normative
documents.

The CITE element was introduced with HTML 2.0, at the latest, as follows:

,-<http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_5.html#SEC5.7.1.1>
|
| Citation: CITE
|
| The CITE element is used to indicate the title of a book or other
| citation. It is typically rendered as italics. For example:
|
| He just couldn't get enough of <cite>The Grapes of Wrath</cite>.

HTML 3.2 says:

,-<http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32#phrase>
|
| Phrase Elements
|
| […]
| *CITE* used for citations or references to other sources

(No examples are given.)

HTML 4.01 says:

,-<http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/struct/text.html#edef-CITE>
|
| CITE:
| Contains a citation or a reference to other sources.

One example (non-normative) is given:

| 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>.

HTML5 only clarifies the meaning of “a citation or a reference to other
sources” in the context of hypertext documents:

| The “cite” element represents a reference to a creative work. It must
| include the title of the work or the name of the author(person, people or
| organization) or an URL reference, which may be in an abbreviated form as
| per the conventions used for the addition of citation metadata.

This clarification is consistent with examples in Specifications of previous
HTML versions as are the examples (non-normative) given in the HTML5
Specification:

| <p>In the words of <cite>Charles Bukowski</cite> -
| <q>An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a
| hard thing in a simple way.</q></p>

(the name of an author)

| […]
| <p><cite>Universal Declaration of Human Rights</cite>, United Nations,
| December 1948. Adopted by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III).</p>
|
| […]
| <p>Who is your favorite doctor (in <cite>Doctor Who</cite>)?</p>

(the name of a work)

| […]
| <article id="comment-1">
| Comment by <cite><a href="http://oli.jp">Oli Studholme</a></cite>
| <time datetime="2013-08-19T16:01">August 19th, 2013 at 4:01 pm</time>
| <p>Unfortunately I don't think adding names back into the definition of
| <code>cite</code>
| solves the problem: of the 12 blockquote examples in
| <a href="http://oli.jp/example/blockquote-metadata/">Examples of block
| quote metadata</a>,
| there's not even one that's <em>just</em> a person’s name.</p>
| <p>A subset of the problem, maybe…</p>
| </article>

(the name of an author)

| […]
| <p><cite>www.w3.org/<b>html</b>/wg/</cite></p>

(an URL reference)

I do not see your claim corroborated by this that “semantics blew up”.
Those are merely (non-normative) examples for different applications of the
same semantics.

> Compare
> <cite>The origin of species</cite>
> with
> <i class=title>The origin of species</i>
> The latter is more flexible, since you can assign different classes to
> different types of citations.

Your logic is flawed (false dichotomy, apparently also called “black-or-
white”). The “cite” element, like almost all HTML 4 elements, and *all*
HTML5 elements, does allow for a “class” attribute:

<http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/sgml/dtd.html#coreattrs>
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/dom.html#global-attributes>

So you can have both: Mark up *clearly* something as a citation *and*
distinguish different types of citations.

<https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white>

> And for citations that should not be rendered in italic by default, just
> use <span> instead of <i>.

For citations that should not be rendered in italics by default then, one
can use the “cite” element with a “class” attribute value that triggers a
CSS ruleset within which there is a declaration to the effect of

font-style: normal;

One might even choose to format all “cite” elements that way by default, and
only declare “italic” for those with a (certain) “class” attribute (value).

As for achieving rendering in italics, given that the “i” element has more
uses than to mark up citations, it is logical to use the “cite” element for
citations in the first place, and make sure that for those citations that
should be rendered in italics a CSS declaration to the effect of

font-style: italic;

applies. Further, one must consider that not all fonts are properly
rendered in italics, so one might want to specificy a particular italics
variant of a (Web) font as well for optimum display in any case.

That too, however, is like all CSS declarations merely a suggestion to the
layout engine; if the user prefers to have it rendered differently, they can
override one’s declarations *either way*. IOW, neither using the “cite”
element nor the “i” element guarantees that text is actually rendered in
italics, and it is incorrect to assume that the “i” element as compared to
the “cite” element would guarantee that, or that the “span” element instead
of the “i” element would guarantee that it would not happen.

Where there are alternatives for markup with equal outcome, it is logical to
choose the alternative that conveys the semantics of the content to be
marked up in the most simple and clearest way. That is the “cite” element
here; neither the “i” element nor the “span” element.

> [further obvious misconceptions and fallacies that I do not want to take
> the time to address now]

See also:

<https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies>


PointedEars
--
Prototype.js was written by people who don't know javascript for people
who don't know javascript. People who don't know javascript are not
the best source of advice on designing systems that use javascript.
-- Richard Cornford, cljs, <f806at$ail$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk>

[Thomas Mlynarczyk]

On 07/11/15 22:24, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> My original motivation was that <cite> [...] might some day be

> used by browsers or search engines in a useful way. But nothing

> happened [...]

So what? Do you stop trying to be a nice person, just because the world
is evil? Do you stop spelling words correctly just because many people
don't seem to care? [This is indeed a big problem here in Germany --
hopefully the situation in Finnland is better...]

> Compare
> <cite>The origin of species</cite>
> with
> <i class=title>The origin of species</i>

The first one looks better to me. And the word "cite" clearly conveys
the message that you are about to quote from that book (or have just
quoted from it). The word "title" in the second example merely states
that "The origin of species" is a title, which is true, yes, but the
fact that you are quoting from the book is lost here. Sure, you could
replace "title" with "cite", but then why not <cite> in the first place?
If I understand your point of view correctly, you stopped caring about
semantic markup because browsers don't care. But I still fail to
understand why that should be a reason.

> The latter is more flexible, since you can assign different classes to
> different types of citations.

You can do this just as well with <cite class="whatever">.

Greetings,
Thomas

--
Ce n'est pas parce qu'ils sont nombreux à avoir tort qu'ils ont raison!
(Coluche)

[Jukka K. Korpela]

8.11.2015, 18:13, Thomas Mlynarczyk wrote:

> And the word "cite" clearly conveys
> the message that you are about to quote from that book (or have just
> quoted from it).

No, a citation does not mean that you need to quote or even paraphrase
the cited work. As I have mentioned, the semantics of <cite> have varied
and have always been vague (and the resident troll’s pointless “lecture”
actually confirms this, if anyone cares to read it), but they have never
required a quotation.

In fact, the W3C HTML5 Recommendation contains an example with no
quotation and with no reason to assume that the context has any quotation:

“In this example the cite element is used to reference the title of a
television show:

<p>Who is your favorite doctor (in <cite>Doctor Who</cite>)?</p>”

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/text-level-semantics.html#the-cite-element

>> The latter is more flexible, since you can assign different classes to
>> different types of citations.
>
> You can do this just as well with <cite class="whatever">.

<cite class="whatever">...</cite> is more verbose than
<i class="whatever">...</i>
*and* it creates the illusion (in the minds of many authors) about
“semantic markup” *and* it makes authors spend their time wondering and
discussing the “correct” use of such markup.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> 8.11.2015, 18:13, Thomas Mlynarczyk wrote:
>> And the word "cite" clearly conveys the message that you are about to
>> quote from that book (or have just quoted from it).
>
> No, a citation does not mean that you need to quote or even paraphrase
> the cited work.

You are missing the point. A citation is a reference to an external source;
if that source is also quoted, then it implies that it is a citation of that
source. It does not mean that a quotation has to accompany a citation, nor
was that implied here.

> As I have mentioned, the semantics of <cite> have varied

Argumentum ad nauseam. That claim has been refuted already.

> and have always been vague (and the resident troll’s pointless “lecture”
> actually confirms this, if anyone cares to read it), but they have never
> required a quotation.

As for “resident troll”, what really happens is that, repeatedly,
investigative people, which happen to include me, expose and deconstruct
your recommendations, that you want to sound and be taken as authoritative
(although you are evidentially lacking the required experience and
understanding), as bad advice that is based on misconceptions and faulty
reasoning. You do not like that. And since you do not have good counter-
arguments, you commit even more fallacies, in particular ad-hominem
fallacies, lashing out at those people.


PointedEars
--
Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on
a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web,
when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another
computer, another word processor, or another network. -- Tim Berners-Lee

[Adam H. Kerman]

Thomas Mlynarczyk <tho...@mlynarczyk-webdesign.de> wrote:
>On 07/11/15 22:24, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

>>My original motivation was that <cite> [...] might some day be
>>used by browsers or search engines in a useful way. But nothing
>>happened [...]

>So what? Do you stop trying to be a nice person, just because the world
>is evil? Do you stop spelling words correctly just because many people
>don't seem to care? [This is indeed a big problem here in Germany --
>hopefully the situation in Finnland is better...]

>>Compare
>><cite>The origin of species</cite>
>>with
>><i class=title>The origin of species</i>

>The first one looks better to me. And the word "cite" clearly conveys
>the message that you are about to quote from that book (or have just

>quoted from it). . . .

No, that's an attribution.

A citation is required because the author of the paper has made an
assertion. Providing a citation to the reader allows the reader to
read the same paper or book the author read. It's also a defense against
an accusation of plagarism.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <dci...@PointedEars.de> wrote:

>Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
>>8.11.2015, 18:13, Thomas Mlynarczyk wrote:

>>>And the word "cite" clearly conveys the message that you are about to
>>>quote from that book (or have just quoted from it).

>>No, a citation does not mean that you need to quote or even paraphrase
>>the cited work.

>You are missing the point.

You got it wrong; he didn't.

>citation is a reference to an external source;

Every source is external to the paper or book; duh.

>if that source is also quoted, then it implies that it is a citation of that
>source.

No, dude. A quote is a quote, not a citation. A quote requires attribution.

>It does not mean that a quotation has to accompany a citation, nor was
>that implied here.

You have no clue about anything being implied. You confused the concept
of attribution with citation.

>>As I have mentioned, the semantics of <cite> have varied

>Argumentum ad nauseam. That claim has been refuted already. . . .

What's Latin for laughably asserting that one has won the argument?

The semantics of <cite> have indeed varied, as I pointed out in the
root article.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Jukka K. Korpela <jkor...@cs.tut.fi> wrote:

>4.11.2015, 23:27, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>>>The <cite> tag is useless.

>>I found it a useful information element, even added a style like it in
>>word processing. As the author, it makes it easier to find citations
>>I'm including.

>From the mid-1990's, I have used <cite> a lot as a matter of principle,
>and I often still continue the practice. But it's really a bad habit. My
>original motivation was that <cite> was "semantic" and might some day be
>used by browsers or search engines in a useful way. But nothing
>happened, except that the semantics blew up. HTML specifications and
>drafts have defined it in different, mutually incompatible ways, and
>HTML5 makes the definition very odd and confused.

For my purpose, given that I know what a citation is, all that's important
is that I've tagged 'em.

>Compare
><cite>The origin of species</cite>
>with
><i class=title>The origin of species</i>
>The latter is more flexible, since you can assign different classes to
>different types of citations.

That use couldn't possibly be consistent from document to document or
author to author and doesn't meet my need.

>And for citations that should not be rendered in italic by default, just
>use <span> instead of <i>.

Ok. I do cite chapter titles or article titles differently and don't use
the <cite> tag. I use <cite> for book and magazine titles and the overall
title of a Web site.

>>As long as browsers render it usefully by default, that's fine with
>>me.

>Whether it is useful depends on whether italic is suitable. Surely there
>are many types of citations where it is not, depending on your
>definition for "citation".

The definition of citation is consistent from one copy editor's manual
to the next; only certain HTML specs got it spectacularly wrong.

>>The reader has the option of rendering <cite> in color, say, if he
>>wants to make picking them out easier.

>That's rather theoretical. Very few users write user style sheets. (I
>suppose by "reader" you meant a person reading the page.)

What else would I mean?

>And what would be the point of coloring <cite> elements when authors
>use <cite> in inconsistent ways?

If the reader had a need to make them stand out from other text at a glance.
He could do it with my document; can't speak for anything anyone else
has written.

>>It was expanded in 4.01 spec to allow personal names to be tagged.

>This illustrates how vague the concept of "citation" is.

I disagree. It illustrates that copy editors still have a place in this
world and that the technical writers, like every other writer, have a hard
time catching their own errors.

>And since we normally don't want to italicize personal names, or those
>that are "cited", the idea means that you use an element with italicizing
>as its only real effect, yet don't want italic.

For my purpose, the definition in 4.01 is useless. I'm using it for
proper citations.

>>Assume no CSS. Have you ever read any advice anywhere that one tag should
>>be nested within the other?

>There is advice on nesting, but I suppose you mean specifically nesting
><cite> and <a>. This can be regarded as a special case of nesting <a>
>and other text-level markup, e.g. <strong><a ...>...</a></strong> versus
><a ...><strong>...</strong></a>. No, I don't think I've ever read any
>advice on this. In practice, the important thing is to be consistent and
>to take your decision into account when designing your style sheet.

Thank you. That's what I was wondering about. I try to nest consistently,
but I don't.

>>>>No, I don't care to use a title attribution in lieu of the cite tag.

>>>I have no idea of what you mean by that.

>>Something like

>><a title="Example documentation" href="http://example.com/">Example
>documentation</a>

>Oh, I see, you meant the title=... attribute. It's role is very
>different from that of <cite>. Opinions disagree on its usefulness.
>Usability experts have favored it, but I think the world has changed
>now. The browser implementations of title=... are awful: tiny text,
>disappearing too soon, and an author can do nothing to help this (users
>could do, but very few people know how to change the font size in
>"tooltips").

>"CSS tooltips" have largely made the title=... attribute outdated.

Thanks. It didn't seem especially useful.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

10.11.2015, 16:30, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

> For my purpose, given that I know what a citation is, all that's important
> is that I've tagged 'em.

Up to a point, yes. We could compare this to using styles in MS Word:
it’s up to you decide how to name the styles, how to use them, and how
to set their rendering features. But in HTML, names of elements are
something more. They can be inspected by visitors, and they may affect
the browser behavior, due to browser defaults or, somewhat
theoretically, due to user style sheets. If someone decides to quote
your HTML document in his own HTML document, it is normally appropriate
to use the original HTML markup, and then your element names become part
of another person’s document.

>> Compare
>> <cite>The origin of species</cite>
>> with
>> <i class=title>The origin of species</i>
>> The latter is more flexible, since you can assign different classes to
>> different types of citations.
>
> That use couldn't possibly be consistent from document to document or
> author to author and doesn't meet my need.

It could be consistent much like the use of <cite> *could* be but isn’t.

>> Whether it is useful depends on whether italic is suitable. Surely there
>> are many types of citations where it is not, depending on your
>> definition for "citation".
>
> The definition of citation is consistent from one copy editor's manual
> to the next; only certain HTML specs got it spectacularly wrong.

The index of my copy of Chicago has an entry for “citation”, with the
note “see documentation”. The index of my copy of the Oxford Style
manual similarly says “citations, see references”. The concept of
citation is vague and not very relevant; what matters are the specific
rules for referencing other people’s works. But the varying definitions
for <cite> in HTML sure mess things up a lot more. (HTML5 even
explicitly says that <cite> is not for quotations, thereby implicitly
confirming that <cite> has widely been misunderstood as being suitable
for quotations – partly because in many languages, verbs etymologically
and apparently related to “to cite”, such as “citera” in Swedish and
“zitieren” in German, mean “to quote”).

>>> The reader has the option of rendering <cite> in color, say, if he
>>> wants to make picking them out easier.
>
>> That's rather theoretical. Very few users write user style sheets. (I
>> suppose by "reader" you meant a person reading the page.)
>
> What else would I mean?

A program, such as an e-book reader. But admittedly the word “he”
removed the ambiguity.

>> And what would be the point of coloring <cite> elements when authors
>> use <cite> in inconsistent ways?
>
> If the reader had a need to make them stand out from other text at a glance.

This would be relevant if <cite> were widely used in a consistent
manner. It isn’t. By styling <cite> in a user style sheet, you would
simply by styling <cite> elements, whatever it might be used for. This
is in practice as arbitrary as styling all elements with class="cite".

But in principle, it is of course useful to be consistent in your
markup. If you use <cite> consistently, even if it were just your
private definition for its meaning, then other people who use your
document may do so in a smoother way. The same goes, for example, for
the use of class names.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[dorayme]

In article <n1oav4$9v7$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkor...@cs.tut.fi> wrote:

> <cite class="whatever">...</cite> is more verbose than
> <i class="whatever">...</i>

It is marginally longer, true. But verbose is surely a bit dramatic.

> *and* it creates the illusion (in the minds of many authors) about
> “semantic markup” *and* it makes authors spend their time wondering and
> discussing the “correct” use of such markup.

Well, perhaps it should not unduly discourage authors who harbour no
illusions about the now presumably faded promise of browser
implementation of semantic markup. It might be helpful information for
the author himself or herself when looking over his or her markup.

--
dorayme