Reported by Simon Sapin

If the quotes are to be balanced and match the examples in 12.3.2, then the following text in 12.3.2 is inaccurate:

  # ‘Open-quote’ refers to the first of a pair of quotes,
  # ‘close-quote’ refers to the second. Which pair of quotes
  # is used depends on the nesting level of quotes: the number
  # of occurrences of ‘open-quote’ in all generated text before
  # the current occurrence, minus the number of occurrences of
  # ‘close-quote’. If the depth is 0, the first pair is used,
  # if the depth is 1, the second pair is used, etc. If the
  # depth is greater than the number of pairs, the last pair is
  # repeated.

David Baron suggests to possibly reword things so that part of the paragraph is an approximate summary of the behavior, followed by an exact set of
rules:

  | 'Open-quote' refers to the first of a pair of quotes,
  |  'close-quote' refers to the second. Which pair of quotes is used
  |  depends on the nesting level of quotes.  The nesting level begins
  |  at 0 at the start of the document, and then, by a depth-first
  |  traversal of the document, it is incremented at every occurrence
  |  of 'open-quote' or 'no-open-quote', and decremented at every
  |  occurrence of 'close-quote' or 'no-close-quote' other than those
  |  that would make it negative.  The quotation mark rendered for an
  |  open-quote is the first quotation mark in the pair of quotes at
  |  the nesting level after that open-quote, unless that nesting level
  |  is greater than the number of pairs, in which case the first
  |  quotation mark in the last pair is repeated.  Likewise, for
  |  close-quote, the quotation mark rendered is the second quotation
  |  mark in the pair of quotes at the nesting level before that
  |  close-quote, unless that nesting level is greater than the number
  |  of pairs, in which case the second quotation mark in the last pair
  |  is repeated, or unless that depth is 0, in which case no quotation
  |  mark is rendered.

Conversation begins:
Bug description:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Dec/0147.html

Proposal: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Dec/0179.html