Terrible UX design on XFN section of Write->Link pages

[Otto42]

Regarding the XFN section on the Write-Link pages:

The UX on this section is fairly terrible. We give the user an editable "rel" field and then don't let them edit it via javascript. Note that if you disable javascript and then edit that field, then your changes are indeed saved and then even show up on the resulting pages correctly. That javascript just won't let you manually edit the field.

I propose that the javascript on this section be changed to allow manual editing of that field, and to make the checkbox/radio sections just add/remove the relevant bits from the field when they are selected/deselected. Result should allow user to manually insert stuff into the rel field and leave those manual insertions unaltered when changing the radio/checkboxes, unless they conflict with the selections being made directly.

Also, side note, would be nice to add a nofollow checkbox to this section as well, to allow easy addition of nofollow to the rel field, which would be handy for the somewhat over-controlling SEO oriented people. ;)

Addition: Reference #2501

Here is to hoping that someday (perhaps before I die), this makes it into a future release.

Thanks for filing this Otto. I just ran into this problem and really had no idea it would be this difficult. I hope it does get fixed for 2.9.

I don't consider myself over-controlling with the SEO, but I was going to follow Matt Cutt's recommendations from here:
​http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-matt-cutts-on-nofollow

Replying to chrishajer:

I don't consider myself over-controlling with the SEO, but I was going to follow Matt Cutt's recommendations from here:
​http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-matt-cutts-on-nofollow

What Matt Cutts is recommending is basically WordPress' default state. No changes are needed to implement that.

Links within your own site don't get nofollowed, and links you create (like your Bookmarks) are basically links you're vouching for as being okay, so they don't get nofollowed either. User contributed links, like links in comments and such, do get nofollowed, since you didn't create them.

Punting due to freeze.

I have implemented a possible solution for this problem. I do not know what the exact behavior should be, but its an example. Something to start this discussion again :-) (Srr for the second patch I had a timeout)