T IN Y URL banned?

omen666

Why has t1nyurl been omitted from the site? This means loads of links are now dead if people do not know where they originally pointed to.

There are restrictions in place now for newbie posters posting links so why can we not have this back? I understand this masks the real url of sites visited and can redirect to some erroneous sites but people are adults and it s their responsibility to protect their laptops/PC's and also the reason the report a post function is there on top of Board Guides.


Makes an issue of posts where people have spent time making posts like this one for example

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2489105

Tixy

From the FAQ
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/site/forum-faqs


In the past sites such as Tiny url, Snip url, Makeashortlink etc have been used to hide referral links, which we don't allow on the forum, so they've been banned.

If you want to shorten a link to post it on the forum please use the following method provided by the forum software:

• Type the text that you want to display instead of the link. Eg. 'MoneySavingExpert'
• Highlight the text with your mouse
• Click the Hyperlink image () at the top of the message
• A pop-up will appear asking you to enter the link you want this text to link to. Enter the link, and click OK.
• Save your post and you'll see your link is clickable.

This was changed a little while ago though, not just with yesterday's update

omen666

oh yes thanks for that Tixy forgot this was a VBulleting forum !!

corbyboy

There is no need to post a shortened URL on a forum such as this one.

The only reason you would want to do it is to hide the destination.

omen666

corbyboy wrote: »

There is no need to post a shortened URL on a forum such as this one.

The only reason you would want to do it is to hide the destination.

Well that is not true now is it, what a stupid statement especially considering it is demonstrated by my link above. It makes a post far easier to read rather than links that exceptionally long.

corbyboy

I apologise for my stupid statement, but it didn't seem that stupid to me.

Here is a short link:

http://www.google.com

Here is a long link:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Buckingham+Palace+Road,+London,+United+Kingdom&sll=52.496787,-0.679436&sspn=0.104299,0.308647&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Buckingham+Palace+Rd,+London,+United+Kingdom&z=15

As you can see the long link is shortened down so doesn't appear "exceptionally long" in the post.

fermi

omen666 wrote: »

Well that is not true now is it, what a stupid statement especially considering it is demonstrated by my link above. It makes a post far easier to read rather than links that exceptionally long.

vbulletin automatically shortens the displayed text of a url if they are excessively long.

As shown in the previous post.

The link still works, and is clickable.

There is no need to use external link shortening sites here.

They have however been used extensively by spammers in the past to obscure the destination of their links, and get round banning of illegal/dusbious links/content.

omen666

corbyboy wrote: »

I apologise for my stupid statement, but it didn't seem that stupid to me.

Here is a short link:

http://www.google.com

Here is a long link:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Buckingham+Palace+Road,+London,+United+Kingdom&sll=52.496787,-0.679436&sspn=0.104299,0.308647&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Buckingham+Palace+Rd,+London,+United+Kingdom&z=15

As you can see the long link is shortened down so doesn't appear "exceptionally long" in the post.

fermi wrote: »

vbulletin automatically shortens the displayed text of a url if they are excessively long.

As shown in the previous post.

The link still works, and is clickable.

There is no need to use external link shortening sites here.

They have however been used extensively by spammers in the past to obscure the destination of their links, and get round banning of illegal/dusbious links/content.

I was making the point not all user t1nyurl to hide the destination

cali_

Tixy wrote: »

From the FAQ
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/site/forum-faqs


In the past sites such as Tiny url, Snip url, Makeashortlink etc have been used to hide referral links, which we don't allow on the forum, so they've been banned.



If you want to shorten a link to post it on the forum please use the following method provided by the forum software:

• Type the text that you want to display instead of the link. Eg. 'MoneySavingExpert'
• Highlight the text with your mouse
• Click the Hyperlink image () at the top of the message
• A pop-up will appear asking you to enter the link you want this text to link to. Enter the link, and click OK.
• Save your post and you'll see your link is clickable.

This was changed a little while ago though, not just with yesterday's update

Just testing
MoneySavingExpert

Thanks Tixy!

poppy10_2

corbyboy wrote: »

There is no need to post a shortened URL on a forum such as this one.

The only reason you would want to do it is to hide the destination.

Yep. There is no need to use a URL shortening service on this forum Even if I post a link to the longest URL in the world:

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/wearejustdoingthistobestupidnowsincethiscangoonforeverandeverandeverbutitstilllookskindaneatinthebrowsereventhoughitsabigwasteoftimeandenergyandhasnorealpointbutwehadtodoitanyways.html

it gets automatically shortened to a reasonable length. And if you still think that is too long and makes the post unreadable, you can use a link like this which is short but still allows people to see where the link goes by hovering over it. The only reason to use tiny url is to prevent people from seeing what they are clicking on.

wealdroam

poppy10 wrote: »

Yep. There is no need to use a URL shortening service on this forum. The only reason to use tiny url is to prevent people from seeing what they are clicking on.

Totally correct.