[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Hyperlink convention

Wed Oct 6 09:06:29 UTC 2004

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> You underestimate the problems with readability you get when your 
> proposal is set into motion. I do not think I will bother with editing 
> en:texts when I cannot easily read what it says. When people are 
> edititing a text, they have to read what it says. All this extra balast 
> will make it hard just to READ the article let alone edit it. So maybe 
> there are "plenty" people who get bothered when they read something they 
> are not familiar with but making it extra hard to editors will also make 
> for "plenty" people who resent this unreadable garble. 

How exactly does putting curly brackets around a word make it any less 
readable than square brackets as for links, or quote marks as for bold 
and italic?

I'm sorry, but calling

The primary {{colors}}, according to ''The Big Book of Color'',  are 
[[red]], [[yellow]], and [[blue]].

"unreadable garble", but saying

The primary colors, according to ''The Big Book of Color'',  are 
[[red]], [[yellow]], and [[blue]].

is not "unreadable garble" is disingenuous.

 > An other thing
 > you miss is that with other ways of writing you get slightly different
 > meanings and your system CANNOT cater for that.

Neither does your system, which I presume is doing nothing. I'm not 
claiming my proposal is a cure-all for problems regarding 
understandability. It is, however, a way to increase understandability 
and also increase consistency. Doing nothing, of course, does nothing to 
increase understandability or consistency.

- David