A Dictionary Link is a term I use to describe a form of hypertext that links a text to an encyclopedic entry—one that defines, in general terms, the meaning of the word being linked.
This is how we use a normal dictionary—to look up the meaning of a word. It is how we use digital dictionaries and encyclopedias like Wikipedia. It is also how I structured my medical hypertext by creating a medical dictionary. It is a specific form of link, one designed to help a reader understand unfamiliar concepts or words in a text—especially helpful when that text contains specialist language.
It is in the nature of this form of link that there may be many trivial links usefully added to a text, which may not be needed by a subject expert, or even by a novice when skimming the text. Filling a page with bright blue hypertext links can substantially distract from the reading experience.
On the other hand, such links are really useful. In my medical hypertexts, a typical wiki-sized page might contain between 15–20 links—the majority of these were to the medical dictionary. Each reference to a drug, a symptom, a related disease, a named part of the body, a tissue type, or an infectious agent was usefully linked to a dictionary element—but in a way that kept the text readable.
This was achieved by dictionary links only showing when you rolled over the text. Other links showed permanently. Links to fundamental concepts, and—if I remember correctly—research papers that supported certain claims, or sections in another part of the hypertext that might be useful to explore, were all permanently shown—but averaged no more than five or six links per page, often fewer.
I anticipate this same need in Wiki and the Hitchhiker Project. In particular, it is already clear that there is an incompatibility (given current tooling) between the need to provide adequate hypertext for difficult concepts and terminology (say, about habitats on Enceladus) and the requirement for the narrative shape to have no more than three links per page. We need both, and it is currently hard to do this, and not possible to visually show the difference.
For this we need: - Link Metadata