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Re: quotes and the <blockquote> element

for

From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Apr 30, 2009 9:45AM

Keith, you bring up good points. I am still mulling where I stand on this.

It seems to me that it's one of many aspects of conventional design that we're going to have to rethink for new technologies and their adaptation.

Here's another one that is almost silly: It's accepted to show the titles of periodicals and books in italics. But if we follow that, should <em></em> be used to create those italics online? And should "Emphasis" be used as the style in Word? Or should we develop a different tag and style that gives the same appearance but says "This is the title of a reference work"? (Perhaps "we" have and I missed it.)

And, in at least some areas, it's accepted to italicize (or bold) a comma or period following an italicized (or bolded) word. It's no big deal either way if the correct style is "Emphasis" or "Strong." But if we come up with a style called "Reference" or "Cited Title," then it might be important to apply that style to only the title itself and not to any trailing punctuation.

As for block quotes, in the past it has been conventional not to put quotation marks before and after them. The indentation and, usually, a reduction in the font size, is supposedly understood to indicate that this passage is a quotation.

Perhaps, for the reasons you mention, we should rethink that convention.

Cliff Tyllick
Web development coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512-239-4516
<EMAIL REMOVED>

>>> Keith Parks < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 4/30/2009 10:04 AM >>>

On Apr 29, 2009, at 10:58 AM, <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:

> Here's a good article about use of the q tag:
>
> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/qtag

Thanks.

> Using blockquotes with background images is very common, and I see no
> problem with doing it. The amount of people browsing with css off is
> even lower than the amount of people browsing with js off. And even If
> someone does have css off, they will still see an indented block level
> item, and it's meaning should be pretty clear.

I guess for me the fact that something is indented isn't a clear
indication that it is a quote.

Also, thinking about the concept of separating content from
presentation, aren't the quote marks part of the content (they are
after all characters in the text), not part of the presentation? And
thus shouldn't be part of the CSS.

And on the practical side, I also know how often people copy text of
all sorts from Web pages, where some of the formatting comes through
and other formatting is lost. So it just seems really strange to strip
out quote marks and substitute *hidden* formatting.

******************************
Keith Parks
Graphic Designer/Web Designer
Student Affairs Communications Services
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-7444
(619) 594-1046
mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/communications

http://kparks.deviantart.com/gallery
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