[techs] Blockquote (and how to propose?)

Hi,

I am wondering what the best way to propose an atomic technique is - is there
a blank template for a single technique somewhere that I could edit and
submit somewhere?

Anyway, the technique I am interested in is for blockquote (use markup
correctly) and for clarity of language. If it goes beyond the scope of what
WCAG is looking for, pleaase let me know

in the current draft there is an example of using the cite attribute, and
pointing to an online resource.

Where the reference isn't to an online resource (for example, something a
person said in a conversation, or more likely in a paper document) you could
use a reference to RDF that identifies the source:

<html xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

... <blockquote cite="http://example.com/chaals/legal/2003#b">Whereas, on the
20th of July, 2003, at approximately 9pm, M- and B- were passengers in a
vehicle driven by K-, and whereas bla bla bla </blockquote> ...

...<blockquote cite="http://example.com/chaals/legal/2003#gamin">Who did you
talk to?</blockquote> ...


and at http://example.com/chaals/legal/2003 you might find the following RDF
fragments

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
         xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
         xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
         xmlns:cmn="http://example.com/chaals/legal/terms#">
...
<!-- about a document: date, who signed it, what language it is in -->
  <foaf:Document rdf:about="b">
    <dc:date>2003-07-20T03:00+0200</dc:date>
    <cmn:signed>
      <rdf:Bag>
        <rdf:li rdf:resource="#stefano"/>
        <rdf:li rdf:resource="#gamin"/>
      </rdf:Bag>
    </cmn:signed>
    <dc:language>it</dc:language>
  </foaf:Document>

...

  <foaf:Person about="#gamin">
    <dc:description>Short and youthful</dc:description>
  </foaf:Person>

... (presumably including a definition of #stefano)

</rdf:RDF>

This is, for a lot of use cases, overkill. On the other hand, this is the
kind of detail expected in academic work, done in a way that allows things to
be cross-referenced. (It comes, slightly edited, from a real use case)

Why is this interesting for language clarity?

First, it allows us to identify that this is text in english apparently
quoted from a document in italian. It would be more common in academic work
to find the original quoted, and the devil take those who don't understand
italian. Insisting on an english translation in a document would require a
major change to the way the author expresses themselves. But having made the
linkage between the two, tools can search for information and find there is
an english extract, at least.

But imagine that in fact the legalese itself is difficult to understand. It
is a relatively simple matter (if time-consuming) to make some further
information available - a simplified version (much as we would make a
longdesc for an important image).

in the same RDF document, or somewhere else on the Web, we might have

...
<rdf:Description rdf:about="#b">
  <uba:essentials xml:lang="en>
You done it!! You done it!! We know it were you what done it!! Are you
gonna admit you done it now? We know anyway, so admit you done it!!
  </uba:essentials>
</rdf:Description>
...

(where uba is a namespace for summaries that can be added in by a tool next
to a massive run of complex jargon)

Tools like SWAP (a currently working web proxy that provides content for
pretty much any browser) can use this kind of information to provide a
summary (or for that matter a cartoon version). Although these summaries
cannot be guaranteed to contain the same information, they can often convey
all that a casual reader would understand anyway, or all that a person with
difficulty interpreting complex text needs to understand.

Documents like the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines and the Oxford
English Dictionary have an explanation about how to use them, so we could
just refer to it:

<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/">
  <uba:howToRead xml:lang="en"
rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/uaag10-summary.html">

cheers

Chaals

Received on Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:28:24 UTC