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Bug 11181 - link type "external" either not useful or underspecified
Summary: link type "external" either not useful or underspecified
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LC1 HTML5 spec (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC Windows NT
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ian 'Hixie' Hickson
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL: http://http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/O...
Whiteboard:
Keywords: WGDecision
: 12222 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2010-10-31 13:09 UTC by Julian Reschke
Modified: 2011-08-17 04:55 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

See Also:


Attachments

Description Julian Reschke 2010-10-31 13:09:21 UTC
The current definition reads:

"The external keyword indicates that the link is leading to a document that is not part of the site that the current document forms a part of."

How is this useful? What's the definition of "being part of a site"? I assume it's different from "being on a different protocol/host/port"? Who is using it?
Comment 1 Tab Atkins Jr. 2010-10-31 13:12:37 UTC
It's relatively common for pages, especially blogs or reference sites, to indicate an off-site link by styling it specially.  

Exactly what "off-site" means is up to the author, but it usually refers to something on another domain.  (In shared-hosting setups, it could also refer to things on a different subdomain.)  The implication is that the resource at the other side of the link is not under the control of the author.
Comment 2 Julian Reschke 2010-10-31 13:22:23 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> It's relatively common for pages, especially blogs or reference sites, to
> indicate an off-site link by styling it specially.  
> 
> Exactly what "off-site" means is up to the author, but it usually refers to
> something on another domain.  (In shared-hosting setups, it could also refer to
> things on a different subdomain.)  The implication is that the resource at the
> other side of the link is not under the control of the author.

If it's for styling through CSS, why not use @class?
Comment 3 Aryeh Gregor 2010-10-31 23:56:10 UTC
Yeah, this distinction is clearly useful for styling, but I don't see any problem with just using a class for styling.
Comment 4 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2010-12-27 23:51:52 UTC
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:
   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Rejected
Change Description: no spec change
Rationale: This is a very commonly requested feature.
Comment 5 Aryeh Gregor 2010-12-29 19:35:58 UTC
. . . like requested where?  And for what?
Comment 6 Sam Ruby 2011-01-17 21:31:40 UTC
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/153
Comment 7 Sam Ruby 2011-01-17 21:50:45 UTC
Doesn't make sense to have this as both REOPENED and as an issue, it was REOPENED after the December 8th cutoff, and TrackerRequest was added before the Jan 22nd cutoff, so we will go with RESOLVED/TrackerIssue.
Comment 8 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2011-06-09 23:00:59 UTC
*** Bug 12222 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Julian Reschke 2011-06-23 13:21:46 UTC
(process note: this shouldn't bet set to "resolved fixed")
Comment 10 Michael[tm] Smith 2011-08-04 05:34:26 UTC
mass-move component to LC1
Comment 11 Sam Ruby 2011-08-15 15:23:16 UTC
WG Decision: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Aug/0308.html

Change Proposal adopted by Amicable Consensus: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Jun/0317.html
Comment 12 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2011-08-17 04:54:06 UTC
Done.
Comment 13 contributor 2011-08-17 04:55:10 UTC
Checked in as WHATWG revision r6484.
Check-in comment: Move rel=external to the wiki.
http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=6483&to=6484