My two cents on the issue:
- The edit link on the far right, as at present, is actually probably
the worst of all possibilities. It's hard to see, it constantly gets
mangled by infoboxes and images, and it's the least intuitively
connected with the correct paragraph. It caused me a lot of problems
as a newbie.
- Edit link on the far left is good from every perspective except that
it pushes the heading out, which is bad for reading and general
visuals. If it could be placed in the margin, that would be great.
- Arrows would really help with connecting the edit link to the right
paragraph. I think either edit link above section heading (with down
arrow) or after section text (with up arrow) could work. A fairly big
change from the current situation but probably more intuitive. Placing
it *after* the section would also work well for the lead section, and
is very intuitive when you want to add text to the end of a section.
- Of the suggestions that have been mocked up, the "German" model is
my preferred one, as it has the least disadvantages. Maybe add a
downarrow to make even clearer that you're editing the whole section,
not just the heading?
Steve