Spicy EpiLinking Techniques
May 30 '06 (Updated Jun 09 '06)
The Bottom Line A dozen great epilinking techniques to spice up your opinions.
An collection of epilinking techniques, with links (of course!) to some examples and some detailed explanations.
TABLE OF TECHNIQUES
• product details
• background link
• intertwine
• hyperlinked table of contents
• skip the plot
• cross-linked glossary
• epidictionary link
• short series menu
• long series overview
• topic lists
• external links
• Message Board post
product details
Are the particular members always complaining when you do not provide product ingredients or spec sheets? Do not copy & paste the spec sheet from the manufacturer’s web site; do not copy the epinions.com details page, but link to that details page instead.
This technique was probably pioneered by PogoMom in her 2003 May 4 review Curl Friends Answered my SOS and her 2003 May 5 review Lathering up my Curl Friends.
Alas, epinions.com does not provide much detail for these beauty products. Note that PogoMom posts the ingredients as a first comment – another way to serve up product ingredients without copying & pasting it as review filler.
Have a look at vivasuzi’s review Woo Hoo! Vivasuzi's got a digital camera :) for an example with a considerably more informative details page.
Even if epinions.com’s topic detail page is insufficiently detailed, you still do not need to copy & from the website. Keep in mind that most readers, even those readers who do care about those details, do not exactly care to see the same copy & paste filler text repeated in each and every review of the product. You can provide an external link to that website instead if the topic page details are insufficient, for those who want to check the details out, but generally, epinions.com’s details page already includes a link to the manufacturer’s web site.
background link
Do not keep explaining the same thing over and over again. Do not copy & paste the same text in multiple opinions. Create some introduction, a backgrounder or glossary and then link to that instead.
For example, in this text, I do not try to explain how to create epilinks or epianchors, but refer you to the related opinions instead; epilinks for epilinks, and even text with odd epilinks and odd text with even epilinks for epianchors.
intertwine
The idea to use anchors on epinions.com was fist demonstrated by that intertwined duo of opinions, the odd text with even epilinks and the even text with odd epilinks. That duo of opinions is a single text with its odd paragraph in one opinion and its even paragraphs in the other. To read it, you must keep click from each paragraph to the next. As you do so, watch your browser’s edit box for anchors.
Intertwining two opinions was a creative way to introduce and demonstrate the use of epianchors. Intertwining opinions will seldom make much sense, but some other techniques that make good use of epilinks and epianchors do.
hyperlinked table of contents
When you make an opinion like this one, which presents related but separate ideas or tips, it makes sense to create an hyperlinked table of contents. Long opinions and 12-steps programs benefit from a hyperlinked tables as well.
Making a hyperlinked table of contents is quite easy. Just write your opinion and create your table of content without thinking about the links yet. Put them in when you’re done writing your text. Only when you are done writing your text do you put the links in. Focus on the text when writing the text, and focus on the links when doing the links.
Here’s how you transform the table of contents:
1. Put an anchor in just front of each item (paragraph, chapter) listed in the table of contents.
2. Change each linke in the table of contents to link to the corresponding anchor
Optionally, put an anchor in front of the table of contents, and link back to the table of contents, as done in Six Serious & Silly Thrilling Tips & Tricks.
Optionally, make use of capitals and bullets to create headings and subheadings, as done in The Epi Book of Records 2005.
When you link to an anchor, remember that you must include both the URL for the web and the anchorname. When you make a hyperlinked table of contents, the URL to use is that of the opinion itself.
So, 2: How to know your opinions’s URL without posting it is just you need for this and several other epilinking techniques, and epinions.com’s preview mode is just what need to test your links without posting your opinion.
skip the plot
Some people like plot summaries that give away everything about a movie, other do not. You can please both groups by providing a plot summary, yet preceding it with a link that over to skips right over it, as done in Star Wreck VI: “Plingon warriors do not take showers!”.
There is exactly one link in that opinion. When you click it, the opinion scrolls past the plot summary. Because there is still quite some text after the anchor, once you’ve clicked the link to skip over plot, it immediately scrolls out of view. You cannot even accidentally read a few words from it, as it simply isn’t on screen anymore. The opinion has scrolled the next paragraph to just below the top of the window. You can continue reading there, and you would have to scroll up again to read the plot.
How to skip the plot:
0. Put the plot early in the opinion (so that there is lots of text after it to scroll into view)
1. Put an anchor just after the plot
2. Offer a skip the plot link to that anchor just before the plot
Simple but effective.
This technique was suggested by firstcontact21 in a comment on EpiXHTML Part 3: Anchors Away!.
This is the one epilinking technique that should be in every movie reviewer’s toolbox.
cross-linked glossary
When you make a dictionary or glossary, put an anchor in front of each item you define. This allows you to link directly from one item to another. It even allows you to link directly to that item from any other opinion.
For an example of directly linking into the middle of another opinion, see the “By the way” note in the hyperlinked table of contents technique above.
epidictionary link
Using some epiterminology not all your readers may be familiar with? You can write a background opinion, you can try to give a brief explanation, you could quote from in the EpinionTalk: The Unofficial Epinions.com Dictionary (ET:UNED), but you can also link to it. Each item has an easily guessed epianchor to allow direct linking to it.
Linking is better than quoting, as it ensures that your opinion gets the automatic benefit of updates, corrections and amplifications, the links to helpful essays, cross-links to other definitions, etcetera. You should only quote instead of link when you specifically want the text that is current at time of writing.
Tip: There are various ways to find the full URL for an item. The easiest way is to take advantage of the many cross-links; find an item that links to the item you want and then copy that link (right-click and choose to the link, or follow the link and copy the full URL from the edit box at the top of your browser).
short series menu
Doing a short series? Make a Series Menu.
Each part of this series starts with overview of the parts. The titles of the other parts are actual links, and the title of the current part is bold, not unlike a menu with the current choice highlighted.
It is easiest to understand when you see it action. The EpiXHTML Series was the first to use a Series Menu. Go to EpiXHTML Part 1: the X quality and then click on any link to another part to see the series menu in action.
As you make a choice from the series menu, the menu itself stays firmly in place, while the title and “Bottom Line” above it and of course the text below it change. While the menu stays in place, the menu items that i unlinked and bold changes. You can see the bold “jump” from one menu item to another to highlight the currently chosen page. Cool, huh?
It may take a few words to describe a series menu, but it is very easily created. A series menu is simpler to make than a hyperlinked table of contents, as it does not even involve anchors.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Get the links to all opinion in the series.
2. Put these links below each other, on separate lines.
3. Put a bullet or numbers in front it to emphasize it’s menu nature.
4. Copy this list of links into each opinion, at the very top.
At this point, each opinion has a link to all parts, including itself.
5. In each opinion, change the link to itself into bolded text.
Thus, you created menu with the current choice highlighted. In each opinion, only the menu items for the other opinions are links. Because the current choice is never a link, the page will not flicker when you click it again; nothing should happen, and nothing does happen.
A Series Menu is a great epilinking technique; it looks cool, is easy to make, and intuitive to use.
long series overview
Doing a long series? Make a Series Overview Opinion.
The series overview opinion that links to all the parts, and each parts links back to overview. This avoids annoying overly Long List of Links in each opinion. It also avoids having to update all them each time you write another part.
The format of the overview opinion is entire up to you. It can be a general introduction, a backgrounder, even a reference. A Series Overview Opinion is the perfect place to put everything you do not want repeat over and over again in each opinion.
topic lists
There is no need to create an overview of all your opinions, your profile page already offers that, but you may want to create topical lists. For example, a list of all your garden tool reviews, all your wine reviews. You may to create several such lists, for example a list of all your David Bowie reviews and another one for all your Dire Straits reviews. Sometimes you want to create an overview opinion, but you can also present the list on your profile page. You can make it a dull drop-down-list or a creative collage of picture links. Many epinionators use album covers to link to their album reviews. Some use Amazon.com pictures, but you should take advantage of the epinions.com’s topic pictures instead; when they click a link, the picture will already be cached.
Anyway, the point is that you do not need to dump long lists of links at the end of every opinion. You do not have to make an overview opinion either. You can just post a list on your profile.
provide live external links
It is possible to provide live external links for your opinions.
There are two ways to create links to outside sites. The first such method, a trick that caused quite some giggling around epinions.com, was the sayonara link. Sayonara links are discussed in the original epilinks text.
Sayonara links were a way to pass a link through the EpiLink Filter, but sayonara links are frowned upon, and were getting harder and hard to create as epinions.com tried to stop members from doing it, while it was already a bit of a hassle to create in the first place.
Sayonara links are mostly of historical interest. There is a method to include external links that epinions.com does not frown upon. That method is the ELLEE, the External Live Links Enhanced Epinion. The ELLEE actually bypasses the EpiLink Filter.
The EpiLink Filter objects to external links in your opinions, but epinions.com does allow external links on your public profile page. The basic idea behind the ELLEE is to make good use of external links on your profile and combine that with the ability to link from an opinion to your profile page.
Detailed explanation and an example are provided in External Live Links Enhanced Epinion.
Here is a Quick Summary:
• Providing real, clickable links on your profile,
• Place an anchor above those links
• In your opinion, link to that anchor
• For completeness, put a link back to the opinion above the anchor
Your readers will not have to retype, and not have to copy & past any link, then can just follow the links instead.
Message Board post
As first demonstrated in à disease, it is possible to link directly to a Epinions Message Board post. It is a lot easier now than it was back then. Nowadays, the link you need is provided in the post itself, in the upper right corner, preceded by the word “post”.
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