.
The use of Block Quote is widespread in forums, blogs, and all kind of discussions (literature, politics, society, gossip...).
This seems to be the most widespread and traditional use:
> This is a block quote. > Every line of it begins with one or more > characters. > > Paragraphs within it are separated with lines containing only the > characters and whitespace. Long lines wrap around making it hard to see where the quote ends. > * Should lists also be supported inside quotes? >> How about quotes inside quotes? > -- Source can be indicated with standard e-mail signature mark. > Empty line marks end of blockquote and beginning of a next one.
The fragment above has been copied from Talk.Quoting, where this proposal was originally being discussed. At this point, it's probably better to separate this proposal from the one about Inline Quote. See Inline Quote Proposal.
It should be noted that a block quote is semantically different from an indented paragraph, a remark or a comment. Instead, it is not semantically different from an inline quote, and it would be desirable to have some kind of similarity in the markup, also.
((Just a stub. Feel free to remove my signature and modify the proposal.))
-- Michele Tomaiuolo, 2007-03-07