The Use Of Url Shortening Services On The Forum

[Totster]

I have recently noticed some posts on the forum containing links that employ the use of URL shortening services such as bit.ly

I must admit to taking exception to this practice for a few reasons.

• The link is blind - this means the person clicking on the link does not know the destination - this has been employed by unscrupulous people in the past to redirect to malicious sites, or sites of questionable content
  
• It allows to poster to track who is clicking the link, by IP etc
  

The first point for me demonstrates that it is in fact against the forum rules to post a blind link. There is no need to shorten the URL here - it can be done within the post using the URL tags. The link can be labeled as the destination, but the full URL can be viewed before clicking (in firefox in the bottom bar). With bit.ly you can just view the referring URL and not the destination.

Ex. forum

The second point, apart from privacy problems of people wanting to track IP's from the forum, I wonder why posters want to be able to track the clicks on their links. There is no benefit apart from if they use affiliate URL's or are just nosey.

Now, I know what you are going to say.. those of you following Thaivisa on Twitter or Facebook will know that the forum employs URL shortening services for their links, but this is different. When you know the link is from a trusted source it's no problem, and you know that you are going to be tracked from the link is acceptable also.. otherwise you wouldn't 'follow' using social networking.

I just think on the forum, shortened links from a third party have no place.

Totster

[dantilley]

Now, I know what you are going to say.. those of you following Thaivisa on Twitter or Facebook will know that the forum employs URL shortening services for their links, but this is different. When you know the link is from a trusted source it's no problem, and you know that you are going to be tracked from the link is acceptable also.. otherwise you wouldn't 'follow' using social networking.

Also, it helps save precious space on Twitter, hence also why the domains are so short like z.pe and bit.ly, seems they were geared towards Twitter and other similar sites with low character limits.

Anyway, agree with this post - didn't know they were used throughout the forum, only seen them on Twitter and Facebook. I would support a rule being put in place to stop it.

PS - can you please remove the hack that prevents people quoting the first post of a thread, it's annoying and I'm yet to hear a valid reason for it being there.

[Totster]

One example here

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=3213294

and here

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=2798802

Totster

[dantilley]

Right, cheers, I see what you mean. Doesn't serve any purpose in those two examples. The link itself can be as short as you like, but the URL can be any length, so the justification "just to make it shorter" is bogus. E.g. like this example of a short link with a long URL behind it: .

Edited December 27, 2009 by dantilley

[Totster]

Is there any policy with regards to this now ?

Totster

[george]

Please do not use url shorterens on the forum. The problem is that some url shorterners are blocked by Facebook and some search engines for spam reasons.

We are working on a solution, our own url shorterner, coming soon

[Totster]

Thanks for the clarification George.

Totster

[george]

We have decided to go with Google's own URL shorter instead,

goo.gl

[RubbaJohnny]

Good work George tho nodoubt not t a permanent fix as technolgy continuosly change

Perhaps awarning icon so we can recall this issue next t the link or apop up as

"not logged in etc"

This s an easy peice of code and allow users the choice

[LivinLOS]

So by the fact this is the preffered method of linking URL's..

That implies you allow URL's ?? So what URL's can I use this shortening service to link to ??

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Posting-Rele...in-t329186.html

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Url-s-t202261.html

Some mods interpret that linking to non commercial, not my own, non forum sites is still in violation of TV's rules ?? Is it ??