Re: Proposal for the deprecation of <blockquote>

Steve Faulkner, Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:21:38 +0100:

> I am unclear about the how the concept of quotations including structured
> code and how often this would occur,

I believe in science as well as in debates debates and the like, one 
now and then wants to quote texts that themselves contains quotations.

Oli, who proposed <footer>, nevertheless suggests too use <article> in 
order to allow <footer> to be quoted. And the spec likewise says that 
<blockquote> can have its own outline (which does’t affect the rest of 
the page) - that's why, I believe, blockquote is sectioning root.

> It seems misdirection to expect that
> code inside the blockquote is from the quoted source

And neither have I suggested something like that. Oli, again, used 
<article> as 'wrapper' for a quoted <footer>, AFAIR. However, I don't 
think that this means that he quoted an entire article - there is not 
even a guarantee that there were a article in the original source. But 
on the Web, it is possible to quote a <footer> or an <article>. If, 
somehow, the outcome of this debate that that is not possible, then 
that means that in some cases, one must edit the  code before quoting - 
one cannot simply just grab the source and, well, quote it.

> and that only code
> from a quoted source is used inside a blockquote, what happens if the
> source does not include code or is not from a HTML source?

Then the author looks at the text and marks it up as is suitable. I 
agree that <blockquote> should not be limited by the original markup.

> Think it would be better to conclude that the content of the blockquote is
> the text not the code used to format it.

Indeed. I think the author should be free to quote the source in the 
manner he/she wishes - e.g. a colorful source could be quoted in black 
and white, and and headings, headers and footers in the source, could 
be “flattened” to paragraphs in the quotation - why not. 

But given that <blockquote> is sectioning root, it should not be 
technically *necessary* to flatten the quotes. Should we *recommend* 
that they do, so that we can use <footer> as meta container?

Leif Halvard Silli



> Regards
> 
> SteveF
> HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>
> 
> 
> On 19 August 2013 14:15, Leif Halvard Silli <
> xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Steve. There could be two <footer> elements in the blockquote - one
>> inside a quoted <article>, and one outside the quoted <article>. Would
>> the AT user then be able to discern the footers from each others?
>> Example:
>> 
>> <blockquote><article>The Quote.
>>             <footer>About The Article.</footer></article>
>>             <footer>About the Quote.</footer></blockquote>
>> 
>> I also wonder whether the user, in the following example, would
>> perceive the footer as a footer relating to the <h1> element (and its
>> implied section) or as a footer relating to the <blockelement> - seems
>> only the content of the <footer> would enable the user to know:
>> 
>> <blockquote><h1>Quoted heading</h1>
>>             <p>Quoted body text</p>
>>             <footer>About the Quote</footer></blockquote>
>> 
>> Your argument in the bug[1] is that the spec says that <footer> is
>> related to "nearest ancestor … sectioning root element". However, the
>> spec says the same about <heading> and <h1>-<h6>, thus it is not
>> logical to take that wording to mean that <footer> speaks about the
>> quotation - at the meta level, any more than it is logical to assume
>> the same about <header> and <h1>-<h6>.
>> 
>> With a new, dedicated element that is *only* permitted as direct child
>> of <blockquote> (just as <figcaption> is only permitted as direct child
>> of <figure>), would solve these problem and be easier to understand,
>> use and present to the user.
>> 
>> [1] https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=22996#c9

>> 
>> Leif Halvard Silli
>> 
>> Steve Faulkner replied, Mon, 19 Aug 2013 11:58:04 +0100:
>>> AT such as JAWS Announces when the virtual cursor enters or exits a
>>> blockquote element. Navigate by and list instances of blockquote element
>> in
>>> document.
>>> 
>>> And JAWS also recognises and announces <footer>
>>> 
>>> so for the example code:
>>> 
>>> <blockquote>
>>>   <p>The blockquote element represents a section that is quoted from
>>> another source.</p>
>>>     <footer>— <cite><a href="
>>> 
>> http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/grouping-content.html#the-blockquote-element

>> ">W3C
>>> HTML5 specification</a></cite></footer>
>>> </blockquote>
>>> 
>>> The use of the footer element is an improvement to user experience as it
>>> identifies the citation as content information.
>>

Received on Monday, 19 August 2013 15:32:10 UTC