[Wikipedia-l] page fragment links (was: Re: Numbered section headings within an article)

Thu Jul 18 20:34:23 UTC 2002

I changed the subject to "page fragment links", I hope that's the right
title for this technic (is it called "anchor setting"?).

> [...] though I haven't made much
> >noise about it because I'm still not sure they're needed--for one
> >thing, they encourage long pages, and I don't like my syntax.  But
> >headings do seem like a natural match there.
>
> This is great!  I've wanted this a few times lately.

Some people in the German Wikipedia have been requesting this lately,
too.

But I don't like the idea. Having an index above the article is a good
idea, but linking into an article is not. I makes the Wikipedia more
static. Headings will change, articles will be completely rewritten with
a new structure, and people shouldn't worry about it ("Hmm, I'll better
leave it like it is, or xx links will be broken").
It also makes the syntax more complicated. Too many pages are already a
mess because you need html for tables and pictures that are integrated
into the text. Please think about implementing about a wiki syntax
solution for this (there already is one for the tables)!

It is also true that people will tend to write longer pages instead of
splitting them up at a certain point.

Please don't implement this "feature" (or better: please turn it off)
before we have discussed enough about it. I think this could have
consequences comparable to subpages, so we should think twice before
using it.

Kurt