Do you ever use the same link multiple times in a single tiddler?

#1

When I reference an idea represented by another tiddler, naturally I make it a link. But currently if I reference that same idea again as part of the same text, I don’t bother to create another link.

For example in the following paragraph from Wikipedia the word “Philosophy” occurs twice. It seems one could choose to create a single link like this:

Epistemology is the branch of [[Philosophy]] concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.

or two links like this:

Epistemology is the branch of [[Philosophy]] concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of [[Philosophy]], along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.

It doesn’t seem that important, but I’ve not really thought about and I’m curious if anyone here as any thoughts on a good convention to adopt? Any reason to avoid multiple links to the same tiddler? Any reason to embrace multiple links?

#2

For me, it depends on convenience/inconvenience and readability.

If it is convenient to have the extra links (or inconvenient not to have the extra links), then I setup the extra links.

From a cognitive disorder perspective (how I process things, and I can easily be distracted-to-dysfunction), links can be really annoying. So I often try to setup links that are obvious enough to know they are there, but not so distracting that they are like a shiny object or SQUIRREL!

#3

I usually only link once. It depends a little bit on the context and where I think there should be a possibility for the reader to open an other tiddler.

Sometimes I add a hypertext link for the first appearance and sometimes I create a link near the end of the text if possible.

Sometimes there is an: Also see: link, link, link … Then there are no links in the text at all. … If I think there should be no distraction.

… It depends :wink:

#4

@Sii another way to do this is as long as the tiddler " philosophy" exists the freelinks plugin will highlight and make every occurrence a link. This can be tuned on an off as needed.

A design approach would be to link to it once, in any particular text when first used. If someone wants to follow that link, it is easy even when later reading the word further down, if is high lighted as a link.

However once a single link (and only one) is used you can do all sorts of magic such as references, backlink. At the bottom of a tiddler you could have a “links in this tiddler”.

Of course there is no harm making additional links in the same tiddler but often unnecessary. It should also be possible to make a utility that scan tiddlers for links eg [[Philosophy]] then searches the rest of the tiddler for Philosophy and wraps it in [[ ]]. Keep in mind this may highlight the difference between Philosophy and philosophy and once choice here is Mario’s Uni-link or alias plugin for synonyms.

#5

I look at it like so:
I want to distract the reading as little as possible. The readers brain should focus on processing the meaning of the current content. A link (with it’s blue colour and invitation to click) obviously shifts attention away from focus on the texts meaning. So you should probably include a link only if you answer “yes” to any of the following:

  • Do I want the reader to click on it?
  • Is there risk that the reader doesn’t sufficiently grasp the meaning of the current text unless there is a link here?
  • If the reader realizes he needs more info about philosophy, is there a risk he will not easily locate access this info without the link?

For the text you show in the OP, I think particularly my third bullet disqualifies the need for a second link so close to the first one.

But as others here have indicated, there are no absolutes. Texts vary, readers vary. Need to access the possibly linked info varies. Even a single readers focus varies from moment to moment.

Apropos the definitive focus break when clicking a link and navigating elsewhere, I think a concept like StretchText is smoother, i.e because it stays in the current tiddler. And Wikipedia has the popup-on-hover feature which I think someone implemented for TW also. I think the general idea with “local+immediate depth” is totally under exploited in hypertext: It lets readers decide on their own depth-of-information level. It does take mental effort to author such texts but if done properly, I think it could much improve e.g education.

#6

I think this is where TiddlyWiki can be used well, any solution used from links, freelinks to references below the text in a tiddler footer can quite easily be switched in and out of operation. That is the reader can choose the level of referencing and or detail presented with a well developed text.

  • As is always the case who is the audience will influence this choice with more complex content or more naïve users potentially demanding more features to help learn and navigate the text.
  • Even just the way the text is organised into tiddlers has a large influence on the features that will make the experience easier. For example if content is in a tiddler that displays in the the current window then the reader can scan for any hyperlinks. If longer a summary could be placed at the bottom of a tiddler, if even longer you may want multiple links to the same content, but you don’t want to keep sending people somewhere they have already being.

My approach would be to develop solutions with more or less information, and relationships that can be changed interactively but since even this will get complex if you have different content lengths consider targeting a common unit of information eg tiddlers no longer than two screens of scrolling so that most of the time the same tools and mechanism’s can be employed. This will improve consistency and demand less effort from the reader, so they can focus on the content.

On the original request directly, rather that saying, “no I don’t use the same link multiple times in a single tiddler”, lets us consider a long term tradition in writing . The acronym or initialisation. Consider we are referring to NASA in our document. The first use should as a rule read “National Aeronautics and Space Administration” (NASA) then subsequent use is N.A.S.A. (Or NASA). Should you come across “NASA” (in Plain text) you should be able to scan the beginning of the the current text for the letters NASA and find it proceeded by “National Aeronautics and Space Administration”.

So in a hyperlinked document lets say we start with [[NASA]] with a link to a tiddler that defines NASA in full and perhaps other information and cross references its mentioning elsewhere. You need not do this for every use of NASA because people will first see a linked “NASA” they can return to if needed. In fact if only the first instance is a link, you are effectively highlighting every key term once which helps the reader scan for all key terms without the clutter or reoccurring links.

Side Note: If you follow the above suggestion to only link the first use in a say a tiddler, it would be programmatically easy to detect all such links in a piece of text and list them in a footer or search for and linkify the others in the text “automagicaly”, and this could be toggled.

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