Ban Hidden Links In Earning Money

[Livewire]

Earlier today I reported a post for having a hidden referral link (hidden behind a TinyURL link).

Out of curiosity, what logical reason is there for allowing hidden links in earning money to begin with, whether they're referrals or not? We're not all grownups and there's no way through TinyURL to view what the url is without visiting the site (or at least not one I've located), and it's way too easy to hide a virus infected url, referral, or otherwise TOS violating site behind it, and the only way to discover whether it's good or not is to click on it.


I move to append "No Hidden Links" to the Earning Money rules. I'd prefer to see something similar forum-wide (I couldn't care less if the link is 500 characters long as long as I can see where I'm about to get sent to), but so far it only seems like Earning Money's the place getting them.

Thoughts/Opinions (and yes I'm aware this is probably being overly harsh, but I don't like not having a clue where I'm about to get sent to)?





Edit: Hmm, I realize now my topic title's very aggressive. Hopefully it's enough to make people go "What's he so upset about?!"

 

[zen-r]

Sounds like a good idea.

The main problem I can see is for some people who currently use TinyURLs (or similar) to squeeze more text & links into a field which only allows a small quota of characters.

For example, some people seem to use them to get more links into their sigs.

 

[Livewire]

Hence why I'm pushing for Earning Money rather than whole forum; I can just avoid clicking them anywhere else, but it's hard to enforce the "No-Non-Referral" when you can't even tell if the link is a referral to begin with.

Gotta click on it and give someone a free click for breaking the rules

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

Earlier today We're not all grownups and there's no way through TinyURL to view what the url is without visiting the site (or at least not one I've located),

add "preview" before the URL. like http://preview.tinyurl.com/2tx

 

[zen-r]

add "preview" before the URL. like http://preview.tinyurl.com/2tx

But that doesn't help those who click on hidden links without knowing that trick.

Even if one knows how to do that, it's more hassle & requires a cookie to be stored - not much good if you regularly clear them, like I do.

@ Livewire - Agreed. I just wanted to make people aware of a possible down-side, if they were to consider the forum-wide option which you also eluded to ;

.... I'd prefer to see something similar forum-wide (I couldn't care less if the link is 500 characters long as long as I can see where I'm about to get sent to), but so far it only seems like Earning Money's the place getting them....

 

[Livewire]

@ Livewire - Agreed. I just wanted to make people aware of a possible down-side, if they were to consider the forum-wide option which you also eluded to ;

Ah, very good point, totally missed that one. Sure makes me lean more towards the Earning Money only idea

 

[jtwhite]

I see your point but I believe it would be more effective to ban people very quickly if they post misleading material such as a link to a virus or scam Web site.

 

[xav0989]

Well, could we edit the forum code to add a rule that adds the preview in tinyurl links?

 

[Sharky]

The URL previewer is a TinyURL *ONLY* feature, that is set by means of a cookie. You can't just append 'preview' to the end of the URL or anything... Plus, if users use something like snipr, it won't work. There are many MANY alternatives to TinyURL.

 

[adamparkzer]

I move to append "No Hidden Links" to the Earning Money rules. I'd prefer to see something similar forum-wide (I couldn't care less if the link is 500 characters long as long as I can see where I'm about to get sent to), but so far it only seems like Earning Money's the place getting them.

Doesn't the forum already shorten long URLs and append "..." at the end of them?

 

[Livewire]

Doesn't the forum already shorten long URLs and append "..." at the end of them?

However the link itself is still visible; if you mouse-over it, the lower-lefthand corner in most browsers will display the full url, or you can right-click>Copy and paste it into a new url bar and be able to see the full url.

TinyURL won't do that - no matter how I mouse-over or copypaste it always shows the tinyurl, not the -actual- url the link goes to.

 

[adamparkzer]

However the link itself is still visible; if you mouse-over it, the lower-lefthand corner in most browsers will display the full url, or you can right-click>Copy and paste it into a new url bar and be able to see the full url.

TinyURL won't do that - no matter how I mouse-over or copypaste it always shows the tinyurl, not the -actual- url the link goes to.

Yes, I realize that, so I was supporting your idea that using TinyURL to shorten URLs is meaningless on these forums, as it automatically shortens it for you anyway.

 

[Livewire]

Yes, I realize that, so I was supporting your idea that using TinyURL to shorten URLs is meaningless on these forums, as it automatically shortens it for you anyway.

Ah, my bad, I interpreted it as "why bother banning, they already get shorter."


Guess it still boils down to "why bother, unless you're hiding something."

 

[davearonson]

there's no way through TinyURL to view what the url is without visiting the site (or at least not one I've located)

I think there is a Firefox extension that will show that. Not sure how many of the url-shortening services it works with -- I would ass-u-me at least TinyURL, bit.ly, and other very popular ones. Of course, users of other browsers are SOL to various extents.

Even so, that doesn't really solve the base problem, of fraudulent or otherwise malicious links. That can be handled to some extent by the reporting mechanisms; I assume posts reported as fraud/malice by enough users, would get removed, possibly even automagically.

-Dave