RE: <q> vs. <quote>, naming etc. (was Re: [www-html] <none>)

Tantek Çelik wrote:

> On 9/26/02 5:52 PM, "Ian Hickson" <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
> > It seems to me the most accessible is to have the quotes
> > inserted by CSS but have the UA do that by default, just
> > like <strong> is made bold by default but can still be
> > styled using CSS.
> > 
> > In other words, exactly what <q> is in HTML4.

> Well, that is what I used to think as well, but others with
> a much better understanding of quotes and quotations as used
> across various languages around the world have demonstrated
> otherwise.  It turns out UAs (short of some sort of natural
> language parsing AI) don't have a chance of properly showing
> default quote marks that are depth/language sensitive,
> despite the fact that a few of us have tried and had some
> degree of success in limited contexts.
> 
> Hence the change for XHTML2.  If you're curious, read the
> i18n and HTML wg archives - I won't pretend to understand
> the i18n reasoning well enough to reproduce it here.

Are those member only archives?  I can't find any real discussion on
this in any of the public i18n archives or www-html.

Also, something about dropping <q> and adding <quote> doesn't feel
right.  Why not leave <q> intact and adding <quote>, with notes about
when you might prefer one over the other?  Those who are happy with the
UA or CSS stylings of <q> can continue to use that; for the more
difficult cases one could use <quote> -- with or without embedded quote
marks and/or CSS styling as needed.


/Jelks

Received on Saturday, 12 October 2002 15:35:53 UTC