On 11/20/2012 8:25 PM, Godmar Back wrote:
> Could you elaborate on your belief that COinS is "actually illegal in
> HTML5?" Why would that be so?

Yeah, thanks for calling me on that, I was wrong! Not sure where I got 
that idea, but it does not seem to be illegal. (Did some earlier version 
of HTML5 get rid of 'title attribute on every element'? Or was I just 
confused?)

Perhaps what I was thinking of is that some people see an accessibility 
issue in using the 'title' attribute for non-human-readable data, like 
COinS does. As the title attribute theoretically provides extra 
human-readable content that a user-agent can display in some cases, and 
filling it with non-human-readable data may confuse people. I seem to 
recall _someone_ complaining about a COinS title attribute on these 
grounds in some app I develop, but I can't remember the details.

Here's others mentioning that potential problem:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microformat#Accessibility
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/06/removing_microformats_from_bbc.shtml

However, in practice, that seems to be a problem more likely, if at all, 
with title attributes on <abbr> elements, not <span> elements like 
COinS. If you google around, you find a lot of people complaining about 
the reverse problem -- don't assume that adding a "title" attribute to 
your <span> provides an accessible description (say, to visually 
impaired users), because most assistive user-agents in fact ignore the 
title attribute!

Still, it's kind of messy to use a title attribute for 
non-human-readable purposes. And is a large part of the motivation for 
HTML5 microdata.



>
>   - Godmar
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 5:20 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> It _IS_ an old unused metadata format that should be replaced by something
>> else (among other reasons because it's actually illegal in HTML5), but I'm
>> not sure there is a "something else" with the right balance of flexibility,
>> simplicity, and actual adoption by consuming software.
>>
>> But COinS didn't have a whole lot of adoption by consuming software
>> either. Can you say what you think the COinS you've been adding are useful
>> for, what they are getting used for? And what sorts of 'citations' youw ere
>> adding them for? For my own curiosity, and because it might help answer if
>> there's another solution that would still meet those needs.
>>
>> But if you want to keep using COinS -- creating a COinS generator like
>> OCLC's no longer existing one is a pretty easy thing to do, perhaps some
>> code4libber reading this will be persuaded to find the time to create one
>> for you and others. If you have a server that could host it, you could
>> offer that. :)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/20/2012 4:47 PM, Bigwood, David wrote:
>>
>>> I've used the COinS Generator at OCLC for years. Now it is gone. Any
>>> suggestions on how I can get an occasional COinS for use in our
>>> bibliography? Do any of the citation managers generate COinS?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Or is this just an old unused metadata format that should be replaced by
>>> something else?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Dave Bigwood
>>>
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> Lunar and Planetary Institute
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>