A minor request to the blogging world

I read blogs almost exclusively via RSS in a reader (bloglines), and as a result I never get to see the purty formatting, links, etc. that people have on their pages for non-reader-using viewers. I'm fine with missing out on the window dressing, but I do have a gripe that I think individual bloggers need to address: don't refer to "the above post" or those links "over to the side" of your current post. In fact, don't use any locational references at all; they mean nothing to me, because all I see is pretty much plain old RSS and no special formatting. Because *I* control the order in which I read posts and because I happen to like having the posts show up most recent first in my reader, it makes no sense to refer to something "above" the current entry, because 1) "above" means after for me, not before; 2) the post I am reading might be the only one on the page rather than part of a long line of them.

Now, you might argue that because it is my choice to read posts in newest-to-oldest order, I have taken it upon myself to figure out the sorting and references and too bad for me if it isn't chronological the way the author intended. I would counter by saying that by choosing to publish a RSS feed you are putting your content out there in a way that you should reasonably expect someone to consume it differently from what you intended. Maybe most people *don't* read in reverse chronological order like I do, but other methods of getting to your post, like permanent linking into archives, etc. will suffer the same problem.

I do have a solution to go with all this griping: make the reference to the other location a hyperlink. Keep on using the locational language if you have to (it *does* admittedly add at least some context in the sense that it points to a time in the past, but link to it as well, so that if I am looking at a feed with only the one post on it and you refer to something else and I want to know what the heck you are talking about, I can just follow the link.

Here's an example:

• Down below, when I made fun of Comcast, I forgot to take into account that I might be hurting their feelings of fiber-envy.
• Earlier, when I made fun of Comcast, I forgot to take into account that I might be hurting their feelings of fiber-envy.
  

Which is easier to follow?