Also see https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/23424/

In my opinion, external link icons add a lot of visual noise and not that much relevant information.

On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 11:22 PM, Jon Robson <jrobson@wikimedia.org> wrote:

Changed subject to reflect this change in topic.  Also cc'ing design mailing list.

In terms of external links to me I don't care about whether I'm leaving the site or not. If I clicked on something and it wasn't what I expected that's a badly labeled link. A link saying there is more information on the [white house official website] and a link to the word [house] should be enough information to tell which I'd external and which isn't.

I actually think the only place an icon next to a link really makes sense is for downloads. Clicking something that downloads a PDF when I thought it was a web page is a little confusing (on mobile at least).

That said if all the external links are in the external links / references section wouldn't encouraging that organisation of links be better....?

Also I agree with Juliusz that we shouldn't force behaviour of where links open. It should be up to the user if they want the same tab or new one and it should be configurable within the browser preferences.

On 24 Oct 2013 16:07, "Juliusz Gonera" <jgonera@wikimedia.org> wrote:

No, we should definitely not warn people, that's just weird ;) It's not like something bad is about to happen.
I'm also not saying that users have the expectation that links point to local URLs, I'm only saying that it might be a useful piece of information to some.


On 10/24/2013 02:48 PM, Jared Zimmerman wrote:

Its  definitely a less heavy handed way of doing the thing many (annoying) sites do when they warn you that you're leaving their site. I just wonder is the signal to noise it worth it. I don't know that modern web users have any expectations that link within a site always point to local site urls. 

Jared Zimmerman  \\  Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation               

M : +1 415 609 4043 |   :  @JaredZimmerman

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