- From: Mike Schinkel <w3c-lists@mikeschinkel.com>
- Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 04:21:45 -0400
- To: public-html@w3.org
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote: > Other than in Mike's own work, I can't recall ever seeing <blockquote> > misused for indentation in social media. Can anyone point to some > recent (say past 6 months) examples of this in the wild? http://mindblogging.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/i_just_might_ne.html http://www.radicalgeorgiamoderate.org/2007/04/10/the-vernon-jones-circus/ http://spaceygreview.blogspot.com/2007/03/atlanta-woman-refused-emergency.html http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030210.html Need I continue? > HTML is for meaning, It is not clear to me this is fact. Anyway, for the rest I'll be arguing how I would do things as the common person, not as the learned person. > So why not use <em>? Or if you need an emphasizing element that can take > block content, propose <em><p></p><p></p></em> be allowed or suggest a > new <blockem> element. > > Helpfully, Mike provided three example URLs. I want to assess the > appropriateness of <indent> for each. > > 1. http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/thesirensongofssi/ > > The first, second, and fifteenth instances of <blockquote> are properly > used for block quotation. The third to the fourteenth uses are all for > code examples, where <pre> and <code> could be used instead: > > http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-phrase.html#the-code > I didn't use <pre> and <code> because it didn't give me the default formatting I was looking for and because it required two elements. > Using <code> has advantages for theoretical screen readers and voice > browsers that could be configured to switch from not reading most > punctuation in ordinary text to reading all punctuation in code, and for > theoretical visual browsers that could perform syntax highlighting. Note > that code examples are hardly typical content for the sort of > non-technical users <indent> is supposed to benefit! The <code> should provide reasonable default formatting, and it does not. > 2. http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/businesscardsphotosandpersonalurls/ > > <blockquote> is used twice where an example class would do better: > > http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-global.html#class1 > The spec as is says: "It must only be used on the following elements: |aside <http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-sections.html#aside>|, |figure <http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-embedded.html#figure>|, |p <http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-prose.html#p>|, |span <http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-phrase.html#span>." None of those would provide me the same formatting and as such I'd probably still use blockquote. If div was supported and the example class gave a default indention, then I'd probably use it instead. | > 3. http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/gtfk/ > > The first use of <blockquote> is in error for <q>. The second and third > uses are heavily disguised direct speech, as "I christen" and "tell > them" confirm. In other words, they could less confusingly be rewritten > as follows: > > <snip> > > I doubt Mike's idiosyncratic indented rendering of direct speech > constitutes a common use case for <indent>. Your approach might be better but I can guarantee you when I'm in a hurry it's too much work and I wouldn't have used it. Besides, it didn't provide the default visuals. > In summary, while Mike's misuse of <blockquote> does confirm the utility > of example and suggest a possible use for <speech>, it does not suggest > any use-case for a semantics-free <indent>. The key point that you are ignoring is there is a need for a catch-all for things that just don't quite fit in with the existing set of semantics provided by HTML5. -- -Mike Schinkel http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/ http://www.welldesignedurls.org http://atlanta-web.org - http://t.oolicio.us
Received on Monday, 16 April 2007 08:22:20 UTC