View source for Template:Blockquote paragraphs

<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em;">{{navbar|Blockquote paragraphs|plain=y}}</div>
Due to the utterly intractable [[MediaWiki]] bug reported at {{bugzilla|6200}}, and still unfixed {{as of|February 2012|lc=y}}, block quoting on Wikipedia, with or without a template, cannot handle freeform linebreaking for paragraphs and poems and the like, unless formatted one very specific (and annoying) way. It's not a problem of blockquote templates, but all uses of {{tag|blockquote|open}}.

{{collapse top|left=y|title=The problem in action: test cases that seem like they should work but fail|bg=#EEEEEE|bg2=#ECFCF4}}<div class="collapse-workaround">
The intuitive choice:

<blockquote><code><nowiki>{{</nowiki><includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1<br />
Line 2<br />
Line 3<br />
Line 4}}</code></blockquote>

results in the mangled:

{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4}}

Blank lines seem to work at first:

<blockquote><code><nowiki>{{</nowiki><includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1<br />
<br />
Line 2<br />
<br />
Line 3<br />
<br />
Line 4}}</code></blockquote>

though with quite tall spacing between the content blocks (lines, in our test cases):

{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1

Line 2

Line 3

Line 4}}

Yet this markup fails with wiki ":" indentation:

:{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1

Line 2

Line 3

Line 4}}

Just trying to use {{tag|p}} or {{tag|br|single}} markup won't solve all the problems:

<blockquote><code><nowiki>{{</nowiki><includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1&lt;br/><br />
Line 2&lt;br/><br />
Line 3&lt;br/><br />
Line 4}}</code></blockquote>

results in odd spacing, with the middle blocks too close together:

{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1<br/>
Line 2<br/>
Line 3<br/>
Line 4}}

Meanwhile this version seems okay at first:

<blockquote><code><nowiki>{{</nowiki><includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|&lt;p>Line 1&lt;/p><br />
&lt;p>Line 2&lt;/p><br />
&lt;p>Line 3&lt;/p><br />
&lt;p>Line 4&lt;/p>}}</code></blockquote>

{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|<p>Line 1</p>
<p>Line 2</p>
<p>Line 3</p>
<p>Line 4</p>}}

but again can't be indented:

:{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|<p>Line 1</p>
<p>Line 2</p>
<p>Line 3</p>
<p>Line 4</p>}}

{{collapse bottom}}

{{As of|February 2012}}, the {{em|only}} solution for the problem is to use {{em|unbroken markup}} with {{tag|p}} or {{tag|br|single}} elements (or others, like nested blockquotes and lists):

:{{tnull|<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1&lt;br/>Line 2&lt;br/>Line 3&lt;br/>Line 4.}}

which, while hard to read, especially for long content, results in the expected:

{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1<br/>Line 2<br/>Line 3<br/>Line 4.}}

And it {{em|does}} work with wikimarkup ":" indentation, unlike the failed test cases above:

:{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|Line 1<br/>Line 2<br/>Line 3<br/>Line 4.}}

Happily, there is an HTML-comment workaround for readability that lets you do whatever you want:

<blockquote><code><nowiki>
{{</nowiki><includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|1=&lt;!--<br />
-->Line 1&lt;br/>&lt;!--<br />
-->Line 2&lt;br/>&lt;!--<br />
-->Line 3&lt;br/>&lt;!--<br />
-->Line 4.}}
</code></blockquote>

or even:

<blockquote><code><nowiki>
{{</nowiki><includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|1=&lt;!--<br />
<br />
-->Line 1&lt;br/>&lt;!--<br />
<br />
-->Line 2&lt;br/>&lt;!--<br />
<br />
-->Line 3&lt;br/>&lt;!--<br />
<br />
-->Line 4.}}
</code></blockquote>

which results in the expected:

{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|1=<!--

-->Line 1<br/><!--

-->Line 2<br/><!--

-->Line 3<br/><!--

-->Line 4.}}

They {{em|are}} indentable:

:{{<includeonly>{{BASEPAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>bq</noinclude>|1=<!--
-->Line 1<br/><!--
-->Line 2<br/><!--
-->Line 3<br/><!--
-->Line 4.}}
<noinclude>

{{Documentation}}

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</noinclude>