Letters to the Editors: January 2010

Yo, editors!

I know I don't say it a lot, partially because I honestly forget who is on staff and who isn't. Maybe one of these days, I'll turn on those staff sigils in the chatterbox and get really surprised.

Anyhow! You guys are gnarly. For years I have read on E2, and it hasn't all crumbled to dust because you provide a certain degree of guidance to those willing to learn and a check on that which hasn't quite founds its voice.

Don't ever change.

Except when you do.

OM will pardon me for piggybacking on his writeup. This was mostly poor timing on my part. I usually manage to get features from the "we're going to do something like this anyway so let's do THIS and let's do it NOW" department closer to a root or ed log. Something more official-announcement-like-looking is in the near future.

-a.

Hey boss,

Removing the underline from a:link and a:visited in the default theme was an aesthetic change which carries significant rammifications in content interpretation.

For as long as it has existed, E2 has had this weird thing going on of lots of underlined words scattered throughout sentences. (As an aesthetic quirk of online writing, blogging has finally pushed this convention more into the mainstream. One alternative, which E2 has always implicitly frowned on, has been to link in a parenthetical at the end of a sentence (link).)

This underlining emparts added emphasis to particular words. In general, E2 authors have accepted the mandatory thou shalt hardlink directive because they have to, and have worked the aesthetic into their writeups in a variety of ways. Consider a few:

• Linking every other word can create a jagged-road vibe, not unlike the bounciness of WhAtEvEr ThIs Is CaLlEd.

• Countless authors have upped the linkthrough-count of their works by using pipe links to provide a second reading of a phrase.

• In the offsite archive of JohnnyGoodyear's writing, a number of former-nodes retain their hardlinking.

By removing the text decoration from a:link and a:visited in the default theme, the emphasis placed on links has been removed by default. In many extant writings, the emphasis was an integral part of the piece. Whether or not the emphasis on linking itself is as well lessened is not my concern, although I expect it is a concern of others. However, if new noders are to be expected to node for the same ages as others, they should read the old nodes with the emphasis that was intended. Afterwards, they can pick a theme without text decoration.

yvohs &c,
gv.