Mottr.am

So, I needed to know how to mark up a dialogue in HTML5. Turns out each side of a conversation should be wrapped in plain old p tags, and the names of the speakers, stage directions, &c. should live inside span, b or i tags. Hmmmn. You could be forgiven for thinking that the cite tag would be a more meaningful way to mark up a speaker’s name, but this is considered poor form. Even though it makes sense, and has been common practice for years, possibly due to the fact that the HTML 4 spec recommends this very use of cite (by mistake, apparently). There was a dialog element in HTML5 for a while, which could’ve come in handy for marking up dialogue. Some people didn’t like this new element one bit. Some other people liked it, and wanted to invent even more elements to go inside it. This argument was settled by throwing the dialog element away, and never speaking of it again. The moral of this tale? Buggered if I know.