The purpose of this list is to assist prospective writers and editors for CMC Magazine by defining a set guidelines for making hypertext links within articles in the magazine.

A link within hypertext can serve a multitude of functions to convey, extend, expand, and associate meaning within text. Ultimately, making these links is a matter of taste (both author's and editor's) as well as the developed editorial style of the magazine, particularly the magazine's style of hypertext organization.

Here's some starting thoughts on links (will be expanded later)....

Link formation guidelines

1. Links should not be made for trival expansion of meaning. For example, in the sentence:
   

   "Those who want to get their hands dirty with online news issues now, rather than being forced to do so by the competition, are the members of the new Society of Electronic News Delivery."

   -- Bilodeau, A. (1994) An overview of the society of electronic news delivery. Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine 1(3):4.

   a link to the dictionary definition of the word hand, would be considered "trivial," as this meaning is not essential for the reader in the context of that article. In contrast, a link to the home page of the Society of Electronic News Delivery in this particular sentence (first use within article) would be very appropriate.
2. Will be expanded here... (see my discussion of this in WWW Unleashed)

Link maintenance policy

1. Since this is a serial, time-dependent publication, links will be updated in the magazine's archives at the discretion of the Editor. In general, we can't guarantee the freshness of past links in articles; they will inevitably go stale. In other cases, the links made in articles stand as historical reference points and shouldn't be updated.

Last revision: 06 Mar 1995 john@december.com