Early morning poll
Okay, I gotta ask. For years, I had the linkspam links coded so that they would open automatically in a new window or tab. (It's a matter of checking off a box in Semagic, or writing "target=blank" into the code; it's extremely easy to do or undo.) But then, either last year or the year before, a few people asked me to stop, and I think someone even said it was one of the worst things or least reader-friendly things you could do, I can't remember the specific wording. So, properly horrified, I stopped. Well, now I've got a few people asking me to make them open automatically in new tabs/windows again. (I think also that tabbed browsing is a lot more common than it was two years ago; back then, the code was actually forcing entire new windows to open if you didn't have "open in tab, not window" selected somewhere.)
So here's my question: what would people actually prefer today? Just to check the mood of the room.
Poll Link preferences
ETA: Judging from the comments, most people seem to do what I do--which is right-click and manually open links in new tabs anyway. (I like opening them in foreground tabs so that by the time I go through and read the new links, the page content has loaded.) After that, people seem divided, so it looks like I'll stay with the links the way they are, no new tabs, because while I feel like new tabs are more beneficial to me as a blogger trying to keep you on this page, if I code links to open in new tabs, people can't choose for that not to happen. And I think you can also open links in a new tab by holding down ctrl when you click on them. So there's that.
So here's my question: what would people actually prefer today? Just to check the mood of the room.
Poll Link preferences
ETA: Judging from the comments, most people seem to do what I do--which is right-click and manually open links in new tabs anyway. (I like opening them in foreground tabs so that by the time I go through and read the new links, the page content has loaded.) After that, people seem divided, so it looks like I'll stay with the links the way they are, no new tabs, because while I feel like new tabs are more beneficial to me as a blogger trying to keep you on this page, if I code links to open in new tabs, people can't choose for that not to happen. And I think you can also open links in a new tab by holding down ctrl when you click on them. So there's that.