Last modified: 2011-03-13 18:06:51 UTC
As explained in many guidelines about Web usability, MediaWiki should never have a link that points to the current page. In the content of articles, this is already the case: if we are on the article called "London", any link to "London" would produce <strong class="selflink">London</strong>. Unfortunately this is not the case for the left side menu, and the home page. As explained in http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031110.html, section nĀ°10: Active links to current pages cause three problems: If they click it, a link leading to the current page is an utter waste of users' time. Worse, such links cause users to doubt whether they're really at the location they think they're at. Worst of all, if users do follow these no-op links they'll be confused as to their new location, particularly if the page is scrolled back to the top. Homepage links on the homepage typically result from using a universal navigation bar that includes "home" as an option. Fine. But when users are on a page that's featured in the navbar, you should turn off that option's link and highlight it in such as way that indicates that it's the current location. Thanks :-)
It's possibly too much of a pain to get this working for the sidebar, since that's so heavily cached. On the other hand, we might be able to get away with a string search-and-replace on the cached version. This doesn't just apply to the main page, it applies to any page linked from the navigation menu. We do this kind of link duplication in the content action tabs too, in Monobook, and probably in some other skins too.
Cf bug 8383
Actually, the link to the current page is very useful in many circumstances, and there have repeatedly been bugs requesting that (closed as WORKSFORME since there already is one: the article tab in most cases). I wouldn't be too hasty in blindly following someone else's "usability" bandwagon - let's think about whether it's a real problem and so on before doing anything here.
Then you might want to discuss this issue with the Wikipedia Usability Initiative.
(In reply to comment #3) > Actually, the link to the current page is very useful in many circumstances, > and there have repeatedly been bugs requesting that (closed as WORKSFORME since > there already is one: the article tab in most cases). Examples? Both of the circumstances, and the bugs.
(In reply to comment #5) > (In reply to comment #3) > > Actually, the link to the current page is very useful in many circumstances, > Examples? Both of the circumstances, [accesskey]+[c] (usually) for the nstab-ns button is very handy for refreshing just the HTML of the current page. This is contrary to ctrl-r or f5, which revalidate CSS/JS with a lot of extra HEAD requests in Mozilla browsers. On dialup, or with a tiny bit of lag in any of the servers serving <head> scripts/styles, this can make a huge difference. The nstab link also contains, on Special pages, the parameters you've currently selected. So one simply has to hit the accesskey for nstab-special (if defined) to refresh without revalidate (per above). > and the bugs. bug 14796 ? (In reply to comment #0) > If they click it, a link leading to the current page is an utter waste of > users' time. This absolutely doesn't apply to a wiki, where virtually every page is potentially dynamic, some from one second to the next. Suggest WONTFIX with prejudice. This bug report is an utter waste of users' time.
(In reply to comment #6) > [accesskey]+[c] (usually) for the nstab-ns button is very handy for refreshing > just the HTML of the current page. This is contrary to ctrl-r or f5, which > revalidate CSS/JS with a lot of extra HEAD requests in Mozilla browsers. On > dialup, or with a tiny bit of lag in any of the servers serving <head> > scripts/styles, this can make a huge difference. > > The nstab link also contains, on Special pages, the parameters you've currently > selected. So one simply has to hit the accesskey for nstab-special (if defined) > to refresh without revalidate (per above). This makes me inclined to agree with WONTFIX. > bug 14796 ? I meant bugs where people asked for links to the current page to be available, as described in my quote of comment 3.
Agree with WONTFIX; in a wiki environment, keeping the UI links active to reload the page is frequently useful.