[uf-discuss] Vote Links: rel="voted-for"

[Ara Pehlivanian]

> Ara, the point is that with rel/rev in particular, it has confused *even the
> people that are supposed to be experts*.  As Ryan points out, I myself got
> it wrong when I initially proposed to Kevin Marks that we use 'rel' for
> VoteLinks instead of their initial idea of using a new HTML attribute
> 'vote'.  In fact I can say that *everyone* (without exception) I have spoken
> with who has tried to use rel/rev has made this mistake at some point,
> including a lot of the people on this list.
>
> The 'rel' / 'rev' distinction is perhaps one of *the most* confusing things
> in HTML4 (if not *the most confusing*).  It is an outlier in the extent of
> confusion caused.

I think this issue is quickly becoming something that's probably
better discussed in the HTML5 discussion forum and/or list. Because
we're getting into a debate on whether or not we should
keep/modify/alter the spec for @rev and @rel. And really, I don't even
know if we're debating because believe me, I'm in complete agreement
with you that trying to work out which to use is a royal pain in the
neck. I'm not at all certain though that only one attribute is the
best solution because in some applications, being able to communicate
the direction of the relationship can be important.

As a matter of fact I'm working on a WaSP proposal that would use the
vote link spec to vote for articles on the web and it made sense to me
that those documents could have rel links back to the WaSP voting
page.

My motivation for pushing the use of both rev and rel comes from roots
in web standards and the idea that we should use "the right tool for
the right job", i.e. semantics.

(bonus points to whoever knows the quote reference.) :-)

A.