On 10/12/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Those are all terrible sentences which would confuse or mislead readers even in the absence of links.
I have no doubt that you could cook up some examples which were were not ambiguous,
You are correct, but that doesn't mean such sentences don't appear "in the wild" so to speak.
but rejecting a 99.999% solution because it's not a 100% solution is a perfect way to abandon being good entirely.
It wouldn't be a 7% solution or even a 3/5 compromise as "client side" links would be all in our heads, not existing outside of the user's screen.
However, we have no clue what screen size and text size the client is viewing with, and it varies rather dramatically. So, once per "screen height" is simply not achievable in the text, though it could be accomplished via scripting on the client side.
You mentioned scripting earlier. The point I was trying to make is that it's disproportionately easier for a machine to reliably remove links than restore them. This applies to content in general but that's another matter.
I dunno that I'd find once per screen would be much of an improvement though: I'll see a word that I want to click on, but now I have to scan up to find a prior linked instance. Maybe one exists, maybe it doesn't. I'd be better off just searching.
That was shorthand for:
once per ==section==, unless
The sections are "too short", in which case once every other section, or The sections are "too long", in which case once every paragraph, unless:
The paragraphs are "too short", in which case once every other paragraph, or The paragraphs are "too long", in which case more than once per paragraph, but not "too much"
The article doesn't have sections to begin with, in which case FAIL
Which of course would be just as subjective as screen height. What I really mean is I don't like having to jump through ridiculous hoops to navigate from one article to another.
—C.W.