5

What page formatting should we encourage for excerpts?

I've seen both block quotes and code offsets (mostly stackoverflow users) and wondered if one was preferred over the other. The block quotes appear better supported by the GUI

For example

This is a block quote

and

this is a code offset

I'd vote for block quotes. Thoughts?

3
  • 1
    Duplicate of meta.law.stackexchange.com/q/62/10 ?
    – feetwet Mod
    Commented Jul 25, 2015 at 20:32
  • @feetwet I edited the question to eliminate the first...thanks for the link
    – Pat W. Mod
    Commented Jul 25, 2015 at 20:36
  • 1
    Code offsets can be extremely annoying at times.
    – HDE 226868
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 15:42

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I think using quote blocks for excerpts would be the best format. Here's why:

This is a long excerpt. It's not really an important excerpt, but at least you can read all the way to the end of it, because quote blocks soft wrap the text and that means that you can see the entire thing, without having to scroll unnecessarily. Also, you can format this text as well, so you can include any original emphasis or formatting.

This is also a long excerpt It's not an important sentence either, but it doesn't wrap. Here are some more characters so you get the scrollbar at the bottom of this excerpt.
Well, it can wrap, but I have to put hard wraps in. Try viewing this on mobile.   
You also can't format this, so **you need to use pseudo-formatting**. Also, fixed
width font is usually harder for people to read.

Also, bonus downside of code blocks for mobile clients: potentially less width, and unexpected syntax highlighting!

1
  • In fact, I will routinely edit to convert code markup used for quotes to block-quote markup on sight.
    – David Siegel
    Commented Sep 29, 2022 at 1:34

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