I especially like the cite attribute too, and it will be nice when we see it come out of hiding. There are some javascript solutions to pulling that information out (in a good way) as well as a few WordPress Plugins. I'll have to cover some of those options in an upcoming post, aye?

I'm particularly interested in the "cite" option for blockquotes, because it has long irritated me that there isn't a decent way to properly quote as there is in all but the most rudimentary word processors. With good word processors, such a Word, Open Office, etc. one can make documents in a scholarly, "stylebook" complinat fashion, it's amazing that so little along this line is available in the blogging world.

Plugin designers, looking fior a new project? Instead of "yet another Stumbled Upon or Dogg button, enable writers with the mechanics of decent writing.

re: ins – That's true, but as soon as you style it to look differently from the standard, what use is it to the readers? Unless there is a standardized way of showing inserted content, they won't realise that it is inserted content. They'll just assume you've formatted that bit of text for some reason.

I agree with you about del though. There are certainly some obvious cases whereby del could be used. (Most of all, when an actual reader points out a spelling mistake; you want to correct it, but not necessarily remove all evidence of the mistake. )

@Jeff: I'm glad you found these tips useful!

@TextAdSearch: del and ins are, I believe, very wise to use as they are semantically correct. Structurally, things which are deleted (or removed) should be wrapped in del, and things which are added should be wrapped with ins. I would hope you would want to do things right. Other than that I don't see direct benefits for you.

And re's time is coming. Still building momentum.

@Michael, again: Re:del – I would say discretion plays a key role in that situation. If it's not useful, no worries. But keep it in mind, because you never know when del will be perfect for a certain situation…

Re: ins – You can style it any way you like with CSS.

Re: rel – I agree completely.

del – Sort of. I think it's very limited though. It's fine if you are making corrections, but what if you're making amendments, changing wording etc.? Do you stroke out the original word? As a reader, that would be more annoying that helpful…

ins – I don't like it because the underline makes it look like a hyperlink.

rel is the one that I think really could be useful in the future. For instance, search engines try to work out relationships between websites based on the number of links. Well, with the rel attribute, you can say more about those links. You can say if they are friends, contacts, people you know in real life etc. and the search engines could then use that information to further gauge the value of individual links.

I don't use many of them on a regular basis tbh, because if you have 10 links/quotes in a post, then you're adding on a good 10 minutes for the sake of information which at this point in time, isn't overly useful.

The exception to that would be on a blogroll when the rel attribute is very useful. (And I always add the alt tag. It's certainly worthwhile.)