On 10/12/08, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)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.