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Currently, having a look at the linked questions sections it is impossible to tell whether the question is linked to by the current question, vice versa or both. I think this makes a significant difference and should therefore be indicated in some way. Maybe

=> "this question links to:"
<= "this question is linked to by:"
<=> "this question is linked to and by:"

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    +1 I think this would be helpful to identify possible canonical answers. I'm assuming currently all outgoing links on the page appear on the Linked sidebar. By seeing how many incoming links an answer (or at least a question) has, it would be easier to identify canon-worthy answers. Perhaps ideally, there should be a way to see incoming links for answers and not just for questions.
    – Kirk Kuykendall
    Feb 14, 2011 at 23:41

2 Answers 2

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+200

I do like the idea of adding a direction to the links because currently you have to click on each link to see if it add value or not.

As far as implementation goes an arrow might be confusing to users. A better solution might be two Linked sections one named: Linked From and one named Linked To.

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    +1 that might also prevent the "sort links by linking from/to" request - hey, why isn't that there anyway?
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Feb 22, 2011 at 8:15
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I think this would make the linked sidebar noisy, with no real benefit to the page itself.

A page that is highly linked has value because it is highly linked; it's totally irrelevant whether the links are incoming or outgoing.

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  • You consider one small arrow noisy? I'm not measuring a page's value by its linkedness but by its contents, and this feature-request would help immediately knowing whether the linked question may contain further information on the current question or whether the latter is helpful for the former...
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Feb 21, 2011 at 8:32
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    While the S/N ratio for the page might slightly decrease, the ratio for the site as a whole might increase. If pages with high incoming links could be easily identified, moderators could more easily designate canonical answers. Look at where google has succeeded and failed. They succeeded by identifying pages based on pagerank and presenting them first. They failed (IMO) with Knol, which lacks a good way to identify knowledge. Who knows, maybe pagerank (based on incoming links) could also be leveraged by SE for advertising.
    – Kirk Kuykendall
    Feb 21, 2011 at 17:21

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