# What could a "spoiler tag" extension look like?

**URL:** <https://talk.commonmark.org/t/what-could-a-spoiler-tag-extension-look-like/767>\
**Category:** Extensions\
**Created:** [October 6, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/what-could-a-spoiler-tag-extension-look-like/767 "2014-10-06T04:05:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 49

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chrisalley](https://talk.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/chrisalley/32/906_2.png) [@chrisalley](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/chrisalley)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/what-could-a-spoiler-tag-extension-look-like/767/49 "2014-10-31T04:45:12Z")

</div>

> [@vitaly](#):
>
> Quotes should not be edited, that’s an edge case. Improving editors can solve problem, but it’s unsafe to assume that all users always have editor with good indented style support.

I’ve handwritten and edited quotes numerous times. For example, when writing down a quote that is in printed material, embedded in an image or heard in spoken audio.

Agreed that we cannot make the assumption that the writer is using a specific editor. If the writer is quoting large blocks of text, perhaps they are an advanced user and likely to be using a more sophisticated editor? It would be good to see some use cases for long quotes. From my experience in academia it was generally frowned upon to quote more than a few paragraphs at a time; long quotes are at the expense of original content (perhaps @jgm would like to weigh in here).

With line blocks for song lyrics I can see a potential issue for marking up lengthy multi-paragraph songs.

If it is decided that a block syntax is necessary, perhaps we could use the same marker for familiarity, similar to how fenced code blocks use the same backtick as inline code:

```auto
>>>
This is a blockquote

Covering three paragraphs

Final paragraph
>>>

```

This could be an alternative to:

```auto
> This is a blockquote
>
> Covering three paragraphs
>
> Final paragraph

```

And for line blocks:

```auto
|||
This is a line block

Covering three paragraphs

Final paragraph
|||

```

This could be an alternative to:

```auto
| This is a blockquote
|
| Covering three paragraphs
|
| Final paragraph

```

I’m not entirely convinced of the need for this but it’s worth looking at options.

---

_[View the full topic](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/what-could-a-spoiler-tag-extension-look-like/767)._