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Re: Wikipedia and non-underlined links?

for

From: Ben Caldwell
Date: Feb 16, 2009 9:40AM

One thing to consider here is that the number of links in a typical
sentence/paragraph on Wikipedia can be quite high and that a large number of
underlined words within body text may interfere with readability.

Also, it is possible for users to create an account on wikipedia and adjust
their preferences to always underline links (My preferences -> Misc -> Underline
links). Wikipedia might consider changing the default setting here, but I think
there is value in giving users the option to suppress the underlines.

I also think that their default style should include link underlines on focus,
which would allow those navigating via keyboard to enjoy the same link
highlighting effect as mouse users.

-Ben

Patrick Lauke wrote:
> Not sure when it happened, but a colleague just made me aware of the
> fact that wikipedia seems to have dropped the underline styling on all
> its links. Now, I'd argue that particularly on wikipedia, where
> potentially every single word in the body copy can be a link, this is
> extremely bad...so we have black text, dark blue links, and a light blue
> background...squint a bit, or work on a monitor with slightly shot
> contrast, and you can't see what's a link and what isn't...
>
> Bad, bad decision there...
>
> P
>