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merlyn (47)

merlyn
  merlyn@stonehenge.com
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/
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PAUSE-ID: MERLYN [cpan.org].
See my home page [stonehenge.com].

Journal of merlyn (47)

Monday October 14, 2002
11:05 PM

first, let's shoot all the HTML hackers

[ #8378 ]
Can we please put the first person who did this:

For more on these methods and the W3C DOM, read to these two articles on the subject.

(where "two" and "articles" are the links to the two articles) at the head of a line, followed by everyone else who has done that, and shoot a single particle beam through all of their collective heads, excising the part that thinks that this is either cute or useful?

{sigh}

Why not simply:

For more on these methods and the W3C DOM, check out an article on subject 1 and an article on subject 2.

I'm sure Tim screams every day when browsing the web, "What have they done to my nice idea?" I can see how Jakob Nielsen will always have a job as well.


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first, let's shoot all the HTML hackers 8 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • Just write like you are not using hypertext, because you do not know how it might be displayed.

    Read [Randal's WebTechniques article on X] and [Alan Flavell's comments on Y].

    Or, if you want to present a set of links the reader should check out, consider something like the CGI Meta FAQ [perl.org] which is useful as HTML or text. Although a competent designer could make it look pretty, it still tells the reader where they are going and what they should expect to find there.

    Even printed, both methods give the read

    • Ooooh, UberAutoWikiZilla.

      Actually M$ got raked over the coals for a plan similar to this, but basically it was because IE was going to start making the extra links and they (M$) would be selling what would get linked to. Content producers and authors griped because it crossed a (fine) line between displaying the content and altering the content (for example, what if the word chicken on PETA's site started automatically becomming a link to Chick-Fil-A).

      There are several neat add-ons for recent mozillae

      • You just did it:
        There are several neat add-ons for recent mozillae (poke around here [mozdev.org]) that will let you hilight text...
        See how that makes no sense away from a hypertext context? Why in English would you say "poke around here"?

        Why not just:

        There are [several neat add-ons for recent mozillae] that will let you highlight text ...
        {sigh}
        --
        • Randal L. Schwartz
        • Stonehenge

        • It was a parenthetical aside pointing to where you could find the aforementioned add-ons. (Actually considering the way slash adds [foo.com] after links, it might have better to use `poke around' as the anchor content to get `poke around [mozdev.org]').

          Something that just occured to me is that it may be a holdover from my email writing style. I don't do HTML email (since it's evil) and tend to intersperse comments or pointers to things parenthetically or as footnotes. Maybe it's some deep seated need

          • It's the "here" that triggered my raised eyebrow. "here" is like "click here". It doesn't make any sense when read.

            If you had written that in "email style" as:

            There are several neat add-ons for recent mozillae (poke around mozdev.org) that will let you hilight text...
            and the hostname is the link, I'd have had no objection. Notice that this sentence reads correctly, and the link says what it is and does what it is. That's clean hyperlinking.
            --
            • Randal L. Schwartz
            • Stonehenge
            • If you had written that in "email style" as:
              There are several neat add-ons for recent mozillae (poke around mozdev.org) that will let you hilight text... and the hostname is the link, I'd have had no objection.
              Unfortunately, slash doesn't work that way. If he had made "mozdev.org" a hyperlink, then the result would have looked like:
              (poke around mozdev.org [mozdev.org])
              which just isn't right.
              • First off, I want to say thank you to merlyn [perl.org] for pointing out the proper way to use hyperlinks. I've done it both ways and I've always been more satisfied with the "right" way and never knew exactly what I was doing wrong when I did it the wrong way.

                Now, back to my response already in progress:

                • Unfortunately, slash doesn't work that way. If he had made "mozdev.org" a hyperlink, then the result would have looked like: ...

                Actually, the way links are presented is an option [perl.org]. (See 'Display Link Domains').

  • Even worse:

    To read this interesting article click here.

    * bluärghhh *

    Not only is it ugly, it's been shown that people scan web pages for links, so to wasting them on "click here" or "this article" just is sooo stupid.

    And while very few (none actually) professional web designers I know commit this crime against the Web, most bloggers aren't web designers. They just want to say stuff.

    /J

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