The Internal Hyperlink Debate

I'm still waiting on some resources to arrive. Hopefully they arrive today and I can continue with the SWCP. I'm waiting for the arrival of Tales of the Jedi volumes 1 and 2.

In the meantime I've been having an internal debate with myself. After posting my last update, I realized, even as I was writing the piece, that those 93,000 years of Star Wars history are indeed mentioned in Wookieepedia. But for some reason it came into my head that I would not reference that website in this blog. When I thought about it, I understood my rationalizations. I don't like hyperlinks, and I don't want this blog to be a long winded re-iteration of Wookieepedia.

For some reason I find hyperlinks distracting when I read. Whenever I'm reading a particular piece, and I come across a hyperlinked word, it's like the author is telling me 'what you're reading is not nearly as important as what is behind this word'. Or, 'you couldn't possibly understand the complexities of what I'm telling you unless you read every bit of information behind the words I've chosen to hyperlink'. Basically, whenever I come across a hyperlink I feel like the author is treating my like an idiot. Of course this isn't the case. I've come to understand that it's the author's way of trying to assist his reader in the further understanding of his point. Still, I find hyperlinks distracting.

So here I am, now wondering if I should hyperlink words in my blogging pieces.

I was speaking to a buddy about this yesterday, and telling him how I felt about hyperlinks, and also that I thought Wookieepedia should be a part of this blog. His response was 'What is a PhD, if not investigating obscurity within a particular topic' - or something to that effect. So taking his sage advice, I've decided to hyperlink, but hyperlink with limits.

I'm going to hyperlink names, organizations, characters, planets, etc... of things that I myself looked up on Wookieepedia that I did not know previously. If I'm going to achieve my PhD in Star Wars-ology, Wookieepedia is going to have to be an ever present backdrop in my quest.

Now to go back and hyperlink things that I've looked up.