Because of the nature of Wikipedia, articles tend to
get rather congested
with links. All these super-bright reds and blues and gaudy underlines can
sometimes get the better of an article. I was working on [[w:LAMP]] just
now when my eyes just couldn't take anymore.
Are you aware of the user preference "Underline links"? I think that
making non-underlined links the default as well would be nicer; the
argument that they are no longer recognizable as links doesn't count, as
the colors are sufficiently distinct. Underlining is generally recognized
as the most distracting of all styles in typesetting, which is why it is
almost never used in print.
There is one advantage to underlining on Wikipedia: If you have two links
right next to each other:
[[December 7]] [[1981]]
These get underlined separately, whereas with no underlining you cannot
tell whether this is one link or two links without hovering.
It might be nice to find some softer colors for links,
visited links, and
non-existent links.
It's not as bad if you turn underlining off, but I agree the colors could
be nicer. On the infoAnarchy wiki I use red on a slightly gray background
for non-existent pages:
http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/
(I also use underlining there, but mostly out of laziness.)
Regards,
Erik