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In my answer here, I had an entire paragraph marked up as a "link", which someone edited to place the [source] after the quoted text.

I'm certainly not complaining - if anything I'm already grateful that anyone would take the trouble. But the combination of my eyes and my screen doesn't give me any particular problem reading the (red) text of links, so I'm wondering if this is an issue for others.

Putting aside other reasons why quoting significant amounts of text might not be all that desirable, should I avoid making the entirety of my quoted text a link, in the interests of legibility?

(I actually do find the highlighted links here on Meta a bit faint, but maybe that's another issue.)

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  • One aspect of this was addressed here. Related, but not directly pertinent: I don't much care for the pinkish tone of unbolded links, but I've learned in my shop to shut up when it comes to design! In any case, monitor quality and display settings vary too widely for any solution to satisfy everyone.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Nov 22, 2012 at 0:10
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    I'm not clear what the anonymous downvote means here. Usually on Meta, if a question advocates some proposition, you downvote if you disagree with that proposition. But I think I've just asked for advice, so I don't know if the downvote means "this question isn't worth asking because it's simply not an issue", or if it's supposed to support some specific position that I haven't actually advanced.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Nov 22, 2012 at 17:53

2 Answers 2

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It simply doesn't look very good to have the entire paragraph as a link. Most of this is aesthetic, with the strange off-color in text you would not normally see flashing at you in garish neon tones of look-at-me, look-at-me. But it also risks confusing the reader, or diluting the punch, emphasis, or meaning of the particular type of markup that one is making overly much use of. Which of those you consider the gravest sin varies, but it still comes down to people thinking it is not such a hot idea.

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    haha - I've no choice but to agree with this one! As I said in the question, the highlighting on Meta isn't ideal for me (nor coleopterist, apparently). I did also say "Putting aside other reasons...", but I guess that's a fairly meaningless constraint to impose.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Nov 22, 2012 at 17:43
  • @Fumble: +1 for "fairly meaningless constraint to impose" :^)
    – J.R.
    Commented Nov 23, 2012 at 11:06
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Instead of linking the entire quote, you could have linked "In football, deliberately tripping an opponent is a foul" in its lead-up. Links, in general, might not be easily noticeable when used with a short word(s) and conversely, might be too noticeable (and thereby, grating) when used with long sentences or paragraphs.

I personally don't have any trouble with the link contrast on the main site. They appear closer to red for unvisited links and pinkish for visited links which is quite acceptable to me. If anything, it's the scheme used on this meta site which I find a little too sedate.

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