[WikiEN-l] Delinking years and only making links relevant to the context considered harmful

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 1:45 PM, Charlotte Webb
<charlottethewebb at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/12/08, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Why the *first* appearance?   We've been able to link into sections
>> for a long time, there are many articles I've read whos intros I've
>> probably never seen. Do you never become curious about some date on
>> the Nth occurrence rather than the first?
>
> I will agree with this. Surely one becomes more curious when
> information is repeated, not less. Once per "screen height" is
> probably idea. I'd want more if using sortable tables.

Sorry to split-reply, I hit send a bit too soon.

I agree with links becoming *more* interesting with repetition.

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.

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.

It might be better than "first use" which places a lot of links in the
intro, since that is the place I am least likely to want to follow
links except when I need definitions in order to understand the text.
But I do not believe that once per rough screen would resolve the
"link not available where I want it" problem. … but the ability to
highlight-search would.