18549 2012-08-13 17:59:23 +0000 Add era attribute to time element 2013-02-12 19:54:22 +0000 1 1 1 Unclassified HTML WG HTML5 spec unspecified All All RESOLVED NEEDSINFO P2 normal --- 1 ian eoconnor eoconnor hsivonen mike plh public-html-admin public-html-wg-issue-tracking public-html-bugzilla oldest_to_newest 72132 0 ian 2012-08-13 17:59:23 +0000 Note: this is taken from a change proposal that was made to the W3C for HTML5 (http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/User:Idevlin/add_era_attribute_to_time_element). Enhance the HTML time element to allow dates before the Common Era by adding an 'era' attribute. There is currenly no way to specify historical dates before the Common Era with the <time> element, and even the proposal linked to above doesn't allow this. The addition of an 'era' attribute would accomodate this. Suggestion: - Add an 'era' attribute to the HTML time element - This attribute can have one of two values: 'ce' (common era) or 'bce' (before common era) - If the 'era' attribute is not present, the default value is 'ce' Effects: - The addition of this attribute would allow those (e.g. historians and archaeologists) who wish to specify historic dates in the past. The abilility to do so would increase the take-up of the time element, especially in academic circles where dates before the Common Era are commonplace, as it would remove the issue of "not supporting dates before the Common Era" (which has been identified in various places (http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2009/html-5-politics-and-me/) and (http://html5doctor.com/the-time-element/) - This will not lead to a "year zero" issue as the proposed use of the (The Dionysian "Common Era" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_era#Dionysian_.22Common_Era.22), which doesn't have a "year 0" eliminates that possibility - The existing specification of the time element and the proposal mentioned above will not need to be changed, as the value of an 'era' attribute simply indicates which era the date refers to 72154 1 hsivonen 2012-08-14 06:46:36 +0000 What's the use case for having proleptic Gregorian BCE dates marked up in a machine-readable way? Surely no one is going to want to import a BCE event marked up with Microdata & <time> into their phone calendar as a reminder. What kind of apps archeologists or historians use that would benefit from having BCE dates on Web pages be machine-readable? 81725 2 robin 2013-01-21 15:59:33 +0000 Mass move to "HTML WG" 81843 3 robin 2013-01-21 16:02:18 +0000 Mass move to "HTML WG" 83027 4 eoconnor 2013-02-12 19:54:22 +0000 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: Additional Information Needed Change Description: No spec change. Rationale: Waiting on responses to Henri's questions in comment 1.