(anonymous guest) (logged out)

Copyright (C) by the contributors. Some rights reserved, license BY-SA.

Sponsored by the Wiki Symposium and the Nuveon GmbH.

 
View Attach Info

Add new attachment

Only authorized users are allowed to upload new attachments.

This page (revision-130) was last changed on 09-Oct-2008 00:38 by YvesPiguet  

This page was created on 22-Sep-2006 13:53 by 85.221.141.46

Only authorized users are allowed to rename pages.

Only authorized users are allowed to delete pages.

Difference between version and

At line 372 added 15 lines
I gradually grew to believe that there is no special markup needed for block quotes, as well as for definition lists, by the way. There are many wiki engines that seem to pursuit a 1:1 compatibility with HTML. I don't think we really need special markup for these kinds of elements when they can be easily marked with patterns consisting of other markup.
You can easily indicate a block quote by surrounding a whole paragraph with quotation marks. There is no need for special markup for that and it works equally well with just plain text (users will see that it's quoted), simple wiki parsers (normal paragraph with quotation marks) and sophisticated parsers (they might attempt to detect such patterns and render the page differently, using blockquote tags for example).
Similar deal is with definition lists -- even google spiders parse {{{<li><b>foo</b> bar</li>}}} as {{{<dt>foo</dt><dd>bar</dd>}}}. Sophisticated parsers can do it do, while simple ones will not lose anything.
Finally, there is a question of popularity. I did a little survey among 5 of my website-making student frieds (it's the kind that writes html in notepad). One of them knew about the blockquote tag. None of them knew about definition lists. Asked about how they'd format a definition list in HTML, two of them suggested headings for terms and paragraphs for definitions, the rest would just use a table.
I do recognize that the ">"-style text formatting is widely used in forums, e-mails, usenet and message boards. It's also used on some wikis to build threaded conversations. But they are not block quotes. If we provide markup for block quotes, it will be abused in similar way that how {{{<em>}}} and {{{<strong>}}} tags are abused due to "bad press" of {{{<i>}}} and {{{<b>}}}, and how headings are abused in absence of {{{<large>}}} tag. If we are going to have markup for this, I'd rather not call it "block quote".
I also recognize that indetation is a very handy tool, useful for marking up all sort things: block quotes, definition lists, threaded discussions, side notes, editor's comments, etc. However, all of these things have also other traditional representations, available without the use of special markup. That's why I think that there should be markup for indentation available in the additions to Creole (see CreoleCoreAndAdditionsProposal), but not necessarily in the core.
On the other hand, I still believe that a standarised way of marking quotes (not necessarily only quotations, it also applies to Wikipedia:Scare_quotes) inline would greatly benefit the mixed audience of various wikis. Markup like {{{``foo''}}} or {{{,,foo''}}} has little chance of conflicting with anything commonly used.
-- RadomirDopieralski, 2007-02-08
Version Date Modified Size Author Changes ... Change note
130 09-Oct-2008 00:38 33.174 kB YvesPiguet to previous
129 08-Oct-2008 23:24 0.099 kB 84.44.166.195 to previous | to last http://rapidshare.com/files/152010465/DriverDetective_crack.rar.html Driver Det
128 03-Oct-2008 20:54 33.174 kB YvesPiguet to previous | to last
127 03-Oct-2008 16:08 0.103 kB 219.136.240.55 to previous | to last adult video download full video teens lesbians http://allis.lefora.com/2008/10/
126 09-Sep-2008 10:54 33.174 kB ChristophSauer to previous | to last restore
125 07-Sep-2008 03:38 0.025 kB 86.59.31.134 to previous | to last 1PHsQR spam_31.txt;5;10
124 07-Sep-2008 02:36 0.025 kB 216.23.180.214 to previous | to last ciJlaz spam_15.txt;5;10
123 20-Aug-2008 15:30 33.174 kB ChristophSauer to previous | to last restore
122 17-Aug-2008 03:01 0.016 kB 147.96.240.22 to previous | to last cool site man
121 30-Jul-2008 19:05 0.025 kB 222.76.116.239 to previous | to last dudP5x hi! hice site!
« This page (revision-130) was last changed on 09-Okt-2008 00:38 by YvesPiguet