Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 81.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2023-06-07 05:33:58+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
        Subject: the hypertextual tail wagging the unaware dog

Dear colleagues,

Long, long ago, in a country far, far away, when the sloppy manner of
communicating information about goings on among computing scholars was
even more frustrating than the scarcity of it, Humanist came into being,
offering a solution. Now, decades later, we are so advanced as to have
another, possibly even more frustrating set of problems. Fortunately for
you, your faithful editor saves you from the worst of it by editing out
most of the annoying bits. But he (cisgenderly speaking) would plead
with you to take certain helpful steps to lessen the problem, as follows.

Comments on the following and your help in identifying additional
infelicities would be most welcome. And please forgive any signs of
grumpiness that may be evident despite best efforts to hide them.

And so, to the suggestions:

(1) use hypertext links as sparingly as possible, since in a text you
actually want others to read, such links quickly become an impediment to
reading, like all inline references once their length exceeds two elements;

(2) plead with your institution to dispense with 'safelinks' and all
other such prophylactic measures, or be clever about your URLs so as to
outwit the software, so that this sort of thing doesn't happen:

w:blog.org<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog
.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cherve_saint-louis%40uqac.ca%7Cd75bd2cfb53340aa33ea08daf50
c7616%7Cc97978b1bd4c44b59bbb20215efdf611%7C1%7C0%7C638091731143530605%7CUnknown%
7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D
%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=LaEBm4cKIY5IaKHIbYzznssTpFlJHCAGks6yFCbeP2E%3D&reserved=0
>
/ t:
@xxxx<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitt
er.com%2Fxxxx&data=05%7C01%7Cherve_saint-louis%40uqac.ca%7Cd75bd2cfb53340aa33ea0
8daf50c7616%7Cc97978b1bd4c44b59bbb20215efdf611%7C1%7C0%7C638091731143530605%7CUn
known%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6
Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=4eOUFANhnT8tF2SEBOuep3vxRzsyDV5teT86bGqBlQI%3D&rese
rved=0>


(3) limit professional self-advertising as much as possible--ironically,
little of it tends nowadays to attest to a person's importance--placing
the massive amounts of references to latest publications, administrative
appointments, honorifics etc. on a professional webpage where it will
have a greater impact, referring to that webpage in an elegantly laconic
link in the e-mail signature.

(4) forswear excessive marks of emphasis, esp the asterisk, on the same
principle as the use of exclamation points in other sorts of text.
Emojis may be just the thing.

Yours helpfully, I hope,
WM


-----
Willard McCarty,
Professor emeritus, King's College London;
Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews;  Humanist
www.mccarty.org.uk


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