Re: Modify blockquote element definition to allow citations

Steve Faulkner, Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:04:12 +0100:

> .i.e. removing restrictions to use currently in the spec and which most
> authors ignore anyway

An examination of your file,[1] hints that that is a wildly exaggerated 
claim:

If we ignore, ”naked” (classless) elements (except <cite> and 
<footer>), then the documents you dug up appears to contains 171 
instances of ”source meta data” inside <blockquote> elements, versus 
126 instances of ”source meta data” outside (in elements adjacent to) 
<blockquote>. Thus ”inside blockquote” was used 57% of the time, while 
“outside blockquote” was used 43% of the time.

In more detail, for accuracy: In your files, I found 1389 nonempty (and 
non-JavaScript code) occurrences of blockquote. Out of these, then, the 
instances of “inside <blockuote>” looked as follows:

1) 19 <footer>s, several of which were from same web sites/authors
2) 123 <cite> (5 of which were child of <footer>, and 2 of which
   where child of an element of class "author".)
3) 36 occurrences of class="author" on various child elements of
   <blockquote>.
4) Some last-child “naked” elements (without @class) or <cite>,
   were used to designate metadata/authors. Amongst these were
   3 <address> elements, all of which contained a <cite>.

   Regarding inside <blockquote>, I also observed:

A) 41 occurences of <h1>-<h6> elements and 6 of <section>,
   proving that outlines occur, in the wild, in <blockquote>.
B) 7 occurences of <header> elements.
C) Some of the blockquote elements were inappropriate as they were
   used for styling or for other “practical” reasons, like indent.

   The instances of *adjacent* to <blockquote>, looked as follows:

a) There were 68 occurrences of class=aut(hor) outside blockquote,
   typically on an element right after (adjacent to) the blockquote.
b) There were 58 <cite> outside <blockquote>, all/most of which
   were used to attribute the author of the quote.
c) There were some 'naked' (classless) adjacent elements after the
   blockquote element were used to provide the name of the author.

Btw, why not also investigate pre-HTML5 pages?

[1] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/377471/blockquote.html

-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 19 August 2013 23:36:08 UTC