a treatise on hyperlinking

laura has a pet peeve. the nyt has started using hyperlinks in some of their stories - but they chose the most inane stuff - in laura's example, they hyperlinked cheney's name and linked to his bio - which is fine, but not relevant to the story.

yahoo news is totally fucking annoying cos they do the same thing - but they point to the senators voting record and so on. thats a stupid use of media real-estate - it should be available, but take it 'offline' - outside the text of the article fer chrissake. they usually have an 'on the web' section at the end of articles - that's where all the regular links should be.

the trigger for this rant is that i hate reading justin raimondo's articles (see here for the latest) because they are chockful of hyperlinks - which isnt itself a bad thing - but im here to argue that hyperlinking has, in effect, become grammar - and i hope that the blogger ethics panel can deliberate on this issue and come up with something satisfactory. when i say that hyperlinking has become a form of punctuation - what i mean is that 'punctuation' traditionally refers to visual triggers in the written word to denote something or other. for example, a punctuation sign doesnt exist in the spoken word - but we use it in the written word to denote a certain emphasis.

here's the problem with hyperlinking as a foundation for writing on the internet - as a reader, hyperlinks arent simply a neutral jump-off point for extra information - the different colour and the different font size provide emphasis on the words highlighted - and thus an embedded hyperlink register, at least in my mind as a reader, can often be a form of emphasis, in effect - grammar. the problem is that writers dont really seem to be understand this issue - and i understand why. the problem is that most of the time, when a writer adds a link, they think they are merely using the appropriate referencing mechanism - but i'm arguing that they actually inadvertently change the effective structure (grammar) of the sentence, as consumed by the audience.

that is, the mere act of changing the color and style of text, by hyperlinking it, is often the equivalent of adding an exclamation point to the particular words that were highlighted for the hyperlink.

im not sure im close to making myself clear here. here's what i mean - consider these sentences.
man claims man bites dog.
man claims man bites dog.
man claims man bites dog.
man claims man bites dog.
man claims man bites dog.

obviously, its exactly the same sentence, but when you read them, they have a different impact. you literally read the same sentence differently - ie there is an embedded grammar. the problem is that the rules havent been established - when a writer adds a hyperlink on a particular word, they oftentimes dont realise that the addition of the link actually changes the meaning of the sentence in the mind of the reader, and more specifically, that the placement of the link can alter the reading of the sentence - even though the author intended no such thing.

thats the main reason why i add a hyperlink using (link) at the end of a quote or whatever - because i dont change the context when i do that. when im not using '(link) ', i try to be very specific with my linkages - for example if im quoting what someone said, i'll hyperlink on the 'said' word to try to make it clear.

i'd argue that atrios, for example, is terrible on this score. he highlights/links the oddest words in his posts.

herewith, i call for some new grammar rules when it comes to linking.

until writers and readers come to some common understanding about why a word or phrase is hyperlinked, i demand that we get a new global standard!