The most exciting implication of Roam Research block references is the design of a protocol for the open web built on the blockification of original sources, allowing clean/easy block attribution, connection, and translation into different formats. We could call it Quoteblock.

You can think of Quoteblock as “super advanced retweeting, but not for tweets.” No permission is needed to build this. The spec could be as simple as somedomain.org/blog/some-post’’p3-p5 (the ‘’ is actually consecutive apostrophes, allowed in URLs but rare to find in the wild).

Since Quoteblock is based on document permalinks and the semantic block structure of those documents, somedomain.org/blog/some-post’’p3-p5 is already a unique identifier with its ownership/provenance built in. So how would it render? This is where Quoteblock gets fun…

Using tweet embeds as reference, Quoteblock renders a blockquote of the specified block or blocks, also pulling basic styles and an attribution logo from the origin, maybe some page context. Quoteblock is about to get crazy powerful with the Quoteblock Graph and Formats.

The Quoteblock Graph is where the #roamcult comes in, because honestly they are the ones most qualified to design how the Graph should work. You could design it without them, but that would be an unforgivable mistake.

Quoteblock Formats is where we introduce something that doesn’t exist currently: The ability to translate blocks, not just to other languages but also to other MEDIA. The simplest example, what is an image’s alt-text other than a “translation” of that image into writing?

What is a transcript of a video but an alternative format of that video? Why shouldn’t I be able to explore available formats/translations at the block level? And if they don’t exist, why shouldn’t I be able to PROVIDE THEM? The value of Quoteblock Formats grows exponentially.

I first introduced the Quoteblock concept to @Bardia on a call when he reached out to talk about how I was using Roam for screenwriting. The team at Roam Research is THE model toolmaker when it comes to engagement with the people using the tool. There’s a reason for the #roamcult beyond the power of the tool itself.

The other reason the #roamcult in particular will want Quoteblock to exist is that, when the Great Roam Unification occurs someday in the not-too-distant future, our references won’t need to be based on a million copy-pasted duplicates.

By the way, there’s no reason that Quoteblock needs to be limited only to the web, it’s just the easiest place to start. You can just as easily imagine referencing scenes from a movie or sections of a podcast by timecode, or a paragraph from a book by chapter and paragraph.

On the open web with Quoteblock, source material is truly source material, originating at its own permalink/owner, creating a referenceable “shadow graph” for every block/primary source on the web. I can’t build this. I hope someone in the #roamcult can and will. I can help.

I was inspired to put this out by @malcolmocean’s thinking. I can help design if #roamcult takes it and runs with it, but I’m not the one to actually do it, nor is my company at the moment. I do have the @QuoteblockSpec Twitter and quoteblock.io domain for the community.