Re: Checkpoint 3.6: Big Hurdle for Double-AA/Triple-AAA Compliance

At 10:40 AM 7/6/99 -0400, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>ADAM GUASCH-MELENDEZ wrote:
>> 
>> >From the guidelines:
>> 
>>   3.7 Mark up quotations. Do not use quotation markup for formatting
effects such 
AG:: note^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In defence of Adam's reading of the guideline, it starts with the positive
injunction, _Mark up quotations_.  In plain English, this clearly means "if
the text is a quotation, mark it up with BLOCKQUOTE or Q."

I agree that it is sensible to apply the "until user agents" principle here
to permit the user of "" in lieu of <Q></Q> in this case, but it takes a
language lawyer to discern this.

In other words, I think this should be treated as a case deserving a formal
interpretation (whatever the process is for those).

Al


as
>>         indentation.
>>               [Priority 2]
>>                    For example, in HTML, use the Q and BLOCKQUOTE
elements to markup
>>                    short and longer quotations, respectively.
>> 
>> OK, not abusing BLOCKQUOTE makes sense. Using Q doesn't - the major
browsers don't support it yet. A short quotation can be marked up as:
>> 
>>      blah blah blah "memorable quote"
>> 
>> which doesn't meet checkpoint 3.7. 
>
>I don't agree with your conclusion. 
>There is no markup that is misused for formatting effects. 
>
>> Or:
>> 
>>     blah blah blah <Q>memorable quote</Q>
>> 
>> which is rendered in most browsers without any quotation marks. This is
simply not acceptable in most cases. The third option is:
>> 
>>     blah blah blah <Q>"memorable quote"</Q>
>> 
>> which would be rendered in an HTML 4.0 compliant browser as having two
sets of quotation marks.
>> Also not acceptable.
>
>This was hotly debated in the HTML WG that
>produced HTML 4.0. The wording we came up with was the following:
>
>   > Visual user agents must ensure that the content of the 
>   > Q element is rendered with delimiting quotation marks. Authors
>   > should not put quotation marks at the beginning and end of
>   > the content of a Q element.
>
>The idea was to be forward looking for this element.
>So, until user agents support proper rendering of Q, you shouldn't use
>it.
> 
>> So, my choice is between broken rendering or non-compliance
>> For now, it's non-compliance.
>
>My conclusion: Don't use Q and you will be compliant.
>
>> Is anybody working on version 1.1 of the guidelines?
>
>Yes we are. Your continued comments are welcome.
>
> - Ian
> 

Received on Wednesday, 7 July 1999 21:12:54 UTC