Proposal:Green wikilinks - an invitation to read

From Strategic Planning
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Every proposal should be tied to one of the strategic priorities below.

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  1. Achieve continued growth in readership
  2. Focus on quality content
  3. Increase Participation
  4. Stabilize and improve the infrastructure
  5. Encourage Innovation



Wikipedia currently only has two types of links: the blue links for existing articles, and the red links for nonexistent articles. I propose to add a system of green links whereby any wikilink to a good or featured article would be coloured green.

Q&A

  • Q: Why implement this?
  • A1: Green links would invite users to read quality articles they might not have otherwise read.
  • A2: Green links would complement "Today's featured article" in showcasing Wikipedia's best work.
  • Q: How would this be implemented?
  • A1: Using the well watched and controlled categories Category:GA-Class articles and Category:FA-Class articles, and the help of a script similar to this rather neat one.
  • A2: Some other ingenious way!
  • Q: For who would this be implemented?
  • A: Green links would be implemented by default for all readers.
  • Q: What are the drawbacks?
  • A1: This add complexity to the linking system, and may cause confusion. (Rebuttal: True, but only very few links would be green, since very few articles are good or featured.)
  • A2: Some colourblind may not distinguish green/red or green/blue.
  • A3: There are potential performance problems.
  • Q: Why green?
  • A1: Because of the connection with the green GA logo .
  • A2: Because green is very distinct from the existing blue and red. (Except for certain colourblind, see above.)

Discussion

Please discuss here.

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