Re: ISSUE-48: UA-q-quotes - suggest closing on 2009-09-03

Leif, thanks for the feedback.

Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
> Martin Kliehm On 09-09-03 17.18:
>>> Quotation punctuation (such as quotation marks) must not appear 
>>> immediately before, after, or inside q elements; they will be 
>>> inserted into the rendering by the user agent.
>>>
>>> I think this could be phrased less ambiguous along the line of this:
> 
> ambiguous = open to or having several possible meanings or 
> interpretations; [1]
> 
> I would say a change from MUST to SHOULD is not related to ambiguity.

I totally agree. The ambiguity is not the use of "MUST" or "SHOULD", but 
that the current spec doesn't clarify that *authors* shouldn't use 
quotation marks. That the wording currently doesn't use the keywords 
"MUST" or "SHOULD" is just a minor side issue.

>>> Authors SHOULD not use quotation punctuation (such as quotation 
>>> marks) immediately before, after, or inside q elements, because user 
>>> agents MUST insert them into the rendering, unless the default 
>>> rendering is overridden by CSS.
> 
> Does this mean that authors *may* add quotation punctuation, provided 
> they disable the automatic quoting via CSS? If so, then I support this 
> change.

Yes, that was my intention. But as I said, somebody with more experience 
in writing specs should polish it.

> I will note that I have the same problem with <dialog> and also with 
> <dl>: May one do  <dt>Him:</dt> ? Or should one do <dt>Him</dt>?
> 
> I think the logical answer for DL/DIALOG is that both should be 
> possible, and thus ditto for <q>.

I'd suggest to file a separate bug on that.[1] Internationalization 
should be respected here, so a colon in some languages could be 
space-colon in French or something completely different in Japanese.

> I would suggest adding
> 
>     unless the default rendering is overridden by CSS
> 
> so as to make it more congruent with what you said about <q>.

Excellent idea, I'll add it in the bug report.

Cheers,
   Martin


[1] http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/enter_bug.cgi?product=HTML%20WG

Received on Thursday, 3 September 2009 16:30:18 UTC