On Aug 28, 2008, at 9:47 PM, Wily D wrote:
What is the comparitive advantage of a floaty-box over a regular xlink, anyhow?
Floaty boxes, especially in the default skin for Wikipedia, are visually coded as part of the interface. We establish this on the main page, when we use them as the convention for organizing the flow of information and summary. Floaty boxes mean "this is not simply information, but navigational and organizational content." So when we move a link to a floaty box it stops just being a "Here is some other stuff related to the topic" link and starts being "Here is an extension of what we do. Here is more."
In that regard, using floaty boxes at all for external links is about situating Wikipedia in context with other projects and with other sites.
The question is, do we want that situating to be on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, or on behalf of free culture? Are we just a part of the WMF's network of sites? Or are we a part of a burgeoning movement to provide free information to the world?
By deciding that our interface and our role stops at the edges of a server farm in Florida we make ourselves a walled garden. By reaching beyond that, we make ourselves leaders in the free culture movement.
-Phil