post with shortened url's / links

this is a brief suggestion / thought on board running and integrity ..

imo, URL's which have been shortened should NOT be allowed on ATS for a few reasons...

A. they hide the website name that is being linked to, and is therefore easy to link to banned sites, or sites that are very well known for containing crap information.

B. They can contain click throughs for people to make money from the link.

by shortened i mean put through a system that changes a url from something like "http://www.long_damn_url.com/8976875/sdfsd7/toolong.html " to a smaller one like this "http://tiny.ur/75256" )

the main reason i have this idea is point A i have mentioned, many stories or posts on ats have a link, alot of the time you can tell just by reading the website name if its worth reading or not... for instance, if someone links to rense, or as has happened before, someone posts a story and uses a link to the onion site ... by looking at the url posted its instant to see if its worth clicking.

EDIT: See post below..

Removed...

~Keeper

[edit on 5/25/2010 by tothetenthpower]

I just HAD to tiny url a link because it was WAY too long to work properly.
Do you know of a better way to submit legit sites that aren't banned?
Not everyone is up to no good...

Meh, Read post wrong.

Please delete THIS post.

ETA: "THIS post" for clarification.



[edit on 25-5-2010 by Rising Against]

their a pain in the ass, on somewhere like ats links shoudl really be in full view and not hidden away .... hell, they could link to anything, and their are sites that let people make money from placing a click through on their shortened url's .

and call me paraniod, but people can litrely shorten a url to anything ....

*SNIPED LINK*

oh, by the way, check out this information i found, its from one of the worlds top astrologists!

tiny.cc...

rising against, what sort of post is that in the board and questions section,. at least try and add something, dont just come in and troll for your own plesure of wasting ppls time .

[edit on 25-5-2010 by boaby_phet]



MOD EDIT:

ATS Terms and Conditions of Use
1j.) URL Links: You will not place a link on our site that initiates an automatic download oe execution of a file of any sort.



[edit on May 25th 2010 by greeneyedleo]

reply to post by boaby_phet


Your first link, loading to a self download .exe file is not cool. I do not know what it was exactly because I am currently on a Mac (for just such protections). Not saying it was harmful, as I am sure it was not and you were just using a real example, but was definitely not cool.

WinRAR, okay I take it back, totally worthless unless it has really improved over the years

[edit on 25-5-2010 by Ahabstar]

reply to post by boaby_phet

rising against, what sort of post is that in the board and questions section,. at least try and add something, dont just come in and troll for your own plesure of wasting ppls time .

I posted something that i thought was relevent and helpful but then later realized (as i have already mentioned in my previous post) that i misunderstood therefore deleting the post.

So no trolling here just a misunderstanding on my part.

I edited the post once again for clarification.

[edit on 25-5-2010 by Rising Against]

I don't click on tiny url links...I like to see where I am going before I go.

So if people use them...they should understand that not everyone is going to visit them.

reply to post by Ahabstar


was just making a point, its only winrar...but you see how someone could put something nasty into one of them! (and what ya mean you dont like winrar hahaha)


@Rising Against - cool ! i was unaware! things move too fast these days ^_^!

[edit on 25-5-2010 by boaby_phet]

Any browser I've ever used, all you have to do is scroll over the link to see the full address of the page linked to.

Honestly I like tinyurl for some things, mainly signature links where space is at a premium but I can concur on wanting to see sources before clicking the link. I personally ignore any sources at infowars, rense, prisonplanet or WND as they are 100 out of 99 total bs, its nice to be able to NOT give them more revenue via clicks/views.

Originally posted by AccessDenied
I just HAD to tiny url a link because it was WAY too long to work properly.
Do you know of a better way to submit legit sites that aren't banned?
Not everyone is up to no good...

You can put the address in the URL tags (creating a hyperlink). Then its not too long

[ url=http:// website here] text decribing the site here[/url]

(take out space after first bracket)

Then people can scroll over the hyperlink and decide if they want to click on it

[edit on May 25th 2010 by greeneyedleo]

Originally posted by broahes
Any browser I've ever used, all you have to do is scroll over the link to see the full address of the page linked to.

That does not work for tiny URL links. But other than those, I do the same.

reply to post by greeneyedleo


that does not work for every link, but if you put the long complicated url's in using the url button - they work (i had one give me some grief a few days ago ... when i put it in the code bit the forum still see's it as a url and tries to shorten it with the ats shortening style)

reply to post by greeneyedleo


I apologize, I thought he was referring to using "Source" or "Article" as the link, or the way the site breaks down long addresses automatically.

Can someone explain this tiny link thing to me? I'm curious now..

Also, thanks greeneyedleo for pointing that correction out to me.

I have to apologize,

I thought you were complaining about people using the blue links thingy and making them short.

I didn't even know this tiny url thing existed.

My apologies, I retract my previous statement, I can see how this could be very annoying.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I wasn't aware that there was such a thing, and if you can't see where you are going.. I'm a little surprised that ATS allows this.

I'm gonna keep an eye on this, as now I am curious as to what a tiny url is. Perhaps we could have giant urls too.. just to be equal.

I apologize again as well OP.

[edit on 25-5-2010 by broahes]

Originally posted by broahes
reply to post by greeneyedleo

 

I apologize, I thought he was referring to using "Source" or "Article" as the link, or the way the site breaks down long addresses automatically.

Can someone explain this tiny link thing to me? I'm curious now..

Also, thanks greeneyedleo for pointing that correction out to me.

Tiny URL (click here for info)shortens the link. However, when you scroll over that Tiny URL link you can not see where it is linking you too. Its kind of sneaky on many levels.

There is no need to use it here. Just use the proper HYPERLINK code I posted above and it does not matter how long your url link is

reply to post by greeneyedleo


Thank you for the info and quick reply. I always use the hyperlink, and wasn't aware of this tiny url stuff.

I learn something new EVERY day here. Thanks.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
Just use the proper HYPERLINK code I posted above and it does not matter how long your url link is

it does if the url contains a not so common character like a hash # . . . try posting a link to a facebook group, they throw up a few problems, but the url button can get round it eventualy!

for some reason doing the code manualy didnt though (this was happening to me on saturday)