Re: a quote is a quote is a quote [was Re: Cleaning House]

Whoops, this is what happens when you hit 'Send' without proofing your 
message first.  When I said
> But the part of the spec that says "/as some authors have used 
> BLOCKQUOTE merely as a mechanism to indent text/
... I meant to finish that sentence.  Promise :-)

It should have said, "But the part of the spec that says '/as some 
authors have used BLOCKQUOTE merely as a mechanism to indent text/' 
implies that there is a correct, non-deprecated use, which there is."

-- Jason Lefkowitz


Jason A. Lefkowitz wrote:
>> thank you for your reasoned and rapid response...  i apologize for 
>> overlooking your contribution to the thread, but as i think we can 
>> all agree, it takes a lot of time and effort to plow through all 
>> the mail one receives daily from public-html
>>   
> Oy, you're not kidding.  I'm just happy to stay on top of the general 
> direction of the discussion, much less try to read everything...
>
>> BLOCKQUOTE is already "half" deprecated, anyway:
> The way I read that is that the _misuse_ of BLOCKQUOTE (as a way to 
> indent text without learning CSS) is deprecated. As it should be.  But 
> the part of the spec that says "/as some authors have used BLOCKQUOTE 
> merely as a mechanism to indent text/
>
> //
>
>> why not use the opportunity to deprecate BLOCKQUOTE altogether?
> Because we're supposed to be evolving the Web-as-it-is.  There are a 
> huge number of documents out there using BLOCKQUOTE today, many if not 
> most of which use it correctly (to indicate quoted text) rather than 
> incorrectly (to hack together indented text).  I have certainly seen 
> it used "properly" more often than misused in the last few years in 
> the sites I visit; and most modern blog packages and CMSes use 
> BLOCKQUOTE correctly by default. Removing BLOCKQUOTE in favor of a 
> mutated Q or some new element would break those documents and 
> applications.  That's not a step I would want to see this WG take 
> unless there were a Really Important Reason to do so, which doesn't 
> seem to be the case, at least to me...
>>  i am interested in your reaction to the other 
>> presentational elements i listed:
>>
>>   * B (bold)
>>   * BIG
>>   * I (italics)
>>   * SMALL
>>   * SUB (subscript)
>>   * SUP (superscript)
>>   * TT
>>   
> BIG, SMALL, and TT strike me as obvious candidates for deprecation; my 
> hunch is they're rarely used, and they have strictly presentational 
> value, without any semantic meaning I can see.  I'm agnostic on B and 
> I; if they're just going to be replaced by STRONG and EM, we might as 
> well use B and I and save ourselves the trouble. SUB and SUP aren't 
> semantically meaningful, but they are probably more widely used than 
> the first three I listed, so I'd want to tread more carefully with them.
>
> Hope this is helpful!
>
> -- Jason Lefkowitz
>
> -- 
> Jason A. Lefkowitz
> web: http://www.jasonlefkowitz.net
> email: jason@jasonlefkowitz.net
>
> "A statesman... is a dead politician.
> Lord knows, we need more statesmen." -- Bloom County 

-- 
Jason A. Lefkowitz
web: http://www.jasonlefkowitz.net
email: jason@jasonlefkowitz.net

"A statesman... is a dead politician.
Lord knows, we need more statesmen." -- Bloom County