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September 13, 2018
From some material
originally included in
STYLISH_HAND
I've got reservations about it these days, but there was an idea
in "web design" that I used to like where rather than having a
proliferation of links to external pages, each such link would go
to a "vestibule" page that would have some short
description/discussion about the link.
I thought I might do this with the "doomfiles" also:
Rather than go directly to the external
location, they'll do an internal html
jump into a special doomfiles
"vestibule" page (possibly called
REFERENCES, or THE_OUT_DOOR). This
page will contain a listing of live
external links, with brief discussion/
description of what the links point to.
The purpose of the "Vestibule" approach It's something like this:
is a little hard to put in words, but
I've experimented with it in other web Promiscuously linked
pages (notably my San Francisco guide) webs can be discon-
and I like the way it works. certingly fuzzy.
(In some respects, it's Click-click-click
better for *each page* and you pass
to have it's own vestibule, rapidly through
but this would disrupt the multiple topics
doomfiles "browse sequence" and points-of-view.
too much.)
With this
cluster of pages
("the doomfiles")
you're supposed
There's a real problem with the to know you're
usual practice with web links: in one place,
a link to a page shows up as a listening to one
few highlighted words. These voice.
words typically give you a
*hint* about where the link When you follow
goes, but don't really say very an external link,
much. if you need to
go through the
Compare that to the print "vestibule" on the
media version of a link, the way out, it
footnote, where any amount of underlines the
commentary about a reference fact that you're
is allowed: leaving, it
highlights
You can describe what kind of the boundary.
work it is, express
reservations about some aspects Further, once
of it, list authors and dates you're used to
of publication, etc. The it, it makes
footnote gives you information possible a
you can use to decide whether different style
you'll follow the reference. of reading, you
can defer
following a
Clicking on a link is far link because
less time-consuming that you know you
following a print-media can find it
reference, but nevertheless below in the
it does consume some time and "vestibule",
effort, and many people just which acts as a
skip them out of habit. "see also"
section.
And the
vestibule itself
can be an
interesting
page to read
through.
One of the big reasons I'm having
second thoughts these days is the
proliferation of stupid javascript
tricks like a pop-up that says
"You are leaving our absolutely
wunnerful site! Are you sure you
want to, you crazy you?"
There's much to be said
for Standard Behavior.
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