4 ms·

What do you need the URL shortener for? I find it very annoying to have to click in order to see who the author of the content is when I can just look at the do

What do you need the URL shortener for? I find it very annoying to have to click in order to see who the author of the content is when I can just look at the domain name at the end of the HN submission.

sabat 16y ago
What do you need the URL shortener for? Actually I don't use them here; never have. I just noticed a post having been killed, and saw a followup from HN staff explaining that using a URL shortener will cause a post to be autokilled. I don't care about URL shorteners. I am concerned about what the rules are, and particularly the rules that are not explictly stated in the HN Guidelines.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That's fairly logical though, a url shortener would allow re-submission of the same link over and over again and drops the hint of where the link goes to from the 'new' and 'news' pages as well as the ability to hover on the link for the full url. All of which are useful. Url shorteners are ok for twitter or IRC elsewhere they're just unnecessary complications.
  - spoondan 16y ago
    He's not arguing for URL shorteners to be permitted. He's arguing that the prohibition should be made upfront.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      How much more up-front than seeing your link go 'dead' could it be? After all it's not like anybody reads the guidelines linked above anyway before submitting a link, especially not if they're old hands (and most likely not even if they're not). Maybe a message could be added to the submission process that said: "You've used a URL shortener, bang, you're dead", but that's pretty obviously the reason why. After all, all your other links will get through just fine.
      - sabat 16y ago
        The URL shortener was just an example -- just one example. My point is not about bit.ly or anything like it. My point is: there are apparently a bunch of rules, and I don't have the sense that I understand them. Worse, I have the sense that asking about the rules is frowned upon. I find this a little chilling, and it seems to fly in the face of the quasi-libertarian spirit I generally find on HN.
        jasonkester 16y ago
        That's by design. The worst thing you can do is tell spammers why you flagged their thing as spam. Right now, there are spammers repeatedly submitting shortened URLs to their WOW Gold sites and not checking to see if they're killed. That actually stops a good fraction of it, because frankly, they're not very smart people. If you told them exactly why their current tactic is not working, they'd immediately move on to the next one and the next one until they find one that works.
        sabat 16y ago
        My point has nothing to do with spammers or URL shorteners -- that was just an example. See above if you care to know my actual point. But this is probably related. I think the anti-spam measures are probably going too far. I'm not a spammer. No site I've ever attempted to submit has been been a spam site, an ad site, or anything else self-serving. Yet my most recent attempts to submit have been stomped on, accusing me of "wasting my time" by attempting to spam HN. Here's the most recent article I tried to post -- you judge whether I'm submitting spam sites: http://www.w3matter.com/journal/2010/8/29/startups-old-people-and-robert-scoble.html http://www.w3matter.com/journal/2010/8/29/startups-old-peopl...
joubert 16y ago
If you browse a NYT article using their iPad app and want to submit it to HN, the NYT app will give you a like like this: http://nyti.ms/9Db1qc http://nyti.ms/9Db1qc

sabat 16y ago

What do you need the URL shortener for? Actually I don't use them here; never have. I just noticed a post having been killed, and saw a followup from HN staff explaining that using a URL shortener will cause a post to be autokilled. I don't care about URL shorteners. I am concerned about what the rules are, and particularly the rules that are not explictly stated in the HN Guidelines.

jacquesm 16y ago
That's fairly logical though, a url shortener would allow re-submission of the same link over and over again and drops the hint of where the link goes to from the 'new' and 'news' pages as well as the ability to hover on the link for the full url. All of which are useful. Url shorteners are ok for twitter or IRC elsewhere they're just unnecessary complications.
- spoondan 16y ago
  He's not arguing for URL shorteners to be permitted. He's arguing that the prohibition should be made upfront.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    How much more up-front than seeing your link go 'dead' could it be? After all it's not like anybody reads the guidelines linked above anyway before submitting a link, especially not if they're old hands (and most likely not even if they're not). Maybe a message could be added to the submission process that said: "You've used a URL shortener, bang, you're dead", but that's pretty obviously the reason why. After all, all your other links will get through just fine.
    - sabat 16y ago
      The URL shortener was just an example -- just one example. My point is not about bit.ly or anything like it. My point is: there are apparently a bunch of rules, and I don't have the sense that I understand them. Worse, I have the sense that asking about the rules is frowned upon. I find this a little chilling, and it seems to fly in the face of the quasi-libertarian spirit I generally find on HN.
      - jasonkester 16y ago
        That's by design. The worst thing you can do is tell spammers why you flagged their thing as spam. Right now, there are spammers repeatedly submitting shortened URLs to their WOW Gold sites and not checking to see if they're killed. That actually stops a good fraction of it, because frankly, they're not very smart people. If you told them exactly why their current tactic is not working, they'd immediately move on to the next one and the next one until they find one that works.
        sabat 16y ago
        My point has nothing to do with spammers or URL shorteners -- that was just an example. See above if you care to know my actual point. But this is probably related. I think the anti-spam measures are probably going too far. I'm not a spammer. No site I've ever attempted to submit has been been a spam site, an ad site, or anything else self-serving. Yet my most recent attempts to submit have been stomped on, accusing me of "wasting my time" by attempting to spam HN. Here's the most recent article I tried to post -- you judge whether I'm submitting spam sites: http://www.w3matter.com/journal/2010/8/29/startups-old-people-and-robert-scoble.html http://www.w3matter.com/journal/2010/8/29/startups-old-peopl...

joubert 16y ago

If you browse a NYT article using their iPad app and want to submit it to HN, the NYT app will give you a like like this: http://nyti.ms/9Db1qc http://nyti.ms/9Db1qc