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Is there any way to stop anonymous linking in the comments?

I see these comments a lot more nowadays. They're often deleted within a few hours, but it seems like it would be easier to simply disallow links like goo.ge and bit.ly. So far as I've seen, nobody has ever used these urls to add to the discussion. Occasionally people post links to better deals in the comments, but when they're real, it's always with the full url.

by stark
asked 10 months ago

6 Answers answer

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bit.ly and tinyurl links are a good way to keep the site clean, rather than have a 200 character link people can post clean looking links. It is pretty obvious when someone is trying to spam, just have some common sense.

Here is a tool to reverse the tinyurl to see what it actually directs to:

http://www.tcpiputils.com/reverse-tinyurl

promyst
10 months ago

vote-for2vote-against

@promyst: i think it's obvious for us but i've seen this happen a lot. where someone signs up that same day and posts in several sponsored deals these shortened urls to the same store/stores. used to be ChristmasMarkt but now it's something eerily similar. then other wooters reply saying the shipping is more, or what about warranty.
the "new user" never comes back to answer questions or even take time to learn to make their own deal post. if they truly have a better deal, they should make their own post not spam existing, and usually sponsored, posts.
it's just annoying. i asked something similar before

http://deals.woot.com/questions/details/6d45c2e3-5e4c-4465-ac96-1fbcb30e262e/should-shortened-urls-be-blocked-on-deals-woot#10

note the long URL link here, it's legit ;-) basically, i think WE know the deal but more casual users could get distracted in those overnight hours the spammy URL exists

w00tgurl
10 months ago

vote-for2vote-against

most times, I put the entire link so a wooter can see that it is legit. youtube shortens their links for you, but i have used tinyurl for some of the more obnoxious links.

rlapid2112
10 months ago

vote-for2vote-against

most people I know only click on shortened URL's like that if it's posted by someone they know.

I ignore them completely, even if I know you. It's not hard to CTRL-C and CONTROL-V a very long url.

unless it's twitter. but I usually avoid twitter anyway. too many twitwits

kamikazeken
10 months ago

vote-for1vote-against

but, but... http://goo.gl/2umk ?

vinithehat
10 months ago

vote-for3vote-against

If you use Firefox, you can use the Long URL Please add-on to expand these links: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/long-url-please/ or http://www.longurlplease.com/

scoobytx
10 months ago

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