For those who don't know, internal anchor links allow authors to create links within their own posts, so readers can navigate easier long posts or go directly to a certain section that interests them.
Someone might be asking: why on earth would I want to write long posts, and even more, to bother adding links to them, when payout window is restricted to 7 days?
That's a good point, but still, we started to make timid steps into allowing people to care about maintaining long term content. They won't be paid for that, not directly, but some do and others will probably do that also.
If I remember correctly, it was in HF20 when we introduced the possibility to edit a post past the 7 days interval. That opened up the possibility to keep updating a post.
The most often types of content that we keep updated as of now are:
- indexes
- FAQs
There would be others if there wouldn't be the incentive to create another post instead, to receive the author rewards.
The possibility to pin posts within a community offers another incentive to keep indexes or FAQs updated.
The problem is these posts tend to grow, and they become very difficult to navigate once they do.
Since we can't hope for something like expandable divs in our posts, a table of contents would be great, and even better for SEO purposes. But we can't create one, because anchor links don't work in the most popular Steem interfaces.
If someone wants to test this in their own preferred Steem interface, to see if it works, be my guest:
https://steemit.com/test/@testuser123/6zzct8-test
Please let me know if it works there!
Just do be clear, markdown doesn't seem to have a standard support for anchor links for whatever reason. But a combination of markdown and html (or just html) should be allowed for this purpose (as it is allowed for writing on two columns, for example).
Go [here](#contact) if you want to contact me directly.
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### <a id="contact"></a> Contact Details
contact details here
I am used to the <name> parameter for setting anchors, but I saw this is preferred by people looking for a solution with markdown. Whatever solution you choose is fine with me, as long as there is one.
The same internal anchors can be used for writing much easier to follow guides or tutorials. It's not rare in a tutorial when you invite the reader to jump back to a certain point. Wouldn't it be easier for him/her to simply click a link for that, instead of scrolling?
Here's another argument for needing internal anchors. Let's say you wrote a long post in the past. And a short fragment or section from there is relevant to what you are writing now, but not the full article. It's also too long or too off topic to insert as a quote in your new post. Wouldn't an internal anchor be useful in the old post now? You can go back and add it if you don't have one. And then simply link to the right section or part of the said article.
I am a person who remembers stuff... Or if I don't I search. And it's not once that I brought back ideas written by myself or others in the past. We need to stop thinking in 7 days intervals! Internal anchors will help. And you don't have to rethink the payout system for that.