[Mediawiki-l] [Foundation-l] Red category link is unhelpful

[Virgil Ierubino]

On 04/04/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Two reds? What a nightmare!


Quite! Above all, I DO NOT think we should change colours beyond what we
have right now: blue and red. That's too beautifully simple to alter.

Red links lead to edit pages. This is a convention we've established
> in the user interface, and I don't see a great reason to change it.
> Sure, it's a bit inconvenient clicking a category name and getting an
> edit page, but you can still see the contents of the category.


This is true for a seasoned user, but my proposal has newer users in mind.
They clicked on that category link because they wanted to see its members,
not for any other reason. If they see an edit box they won't realise the
page still functions. They'll think it's a nonexistent page like every other
red link. Yknow, if there's a category "People who died in 1845" which no
one bothered to write a description for, someone might click it and end up
thinking no one died in 1845!

As was said by others, this is a matter of balance. Any disadvantages (and I
see few) regards this change are so minimal compared to the advantages. It's
simply true that more often than not, you'll want to just view a red
category rather than edit it. It's still a useful page! (Unlike a red
article).

Virgil.