Should anything be done in LQ about shortened and redirect links?
 

Per this example thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rs-4175572577/

The OP here is trying to be helpful. I however also do adamantly agree with wpeckham in that it is risky and questionable to click on links such as that. And I have not tried any of the links, nor will not.

Should LQ have a policy stating that links in that form are not acceptable for use in posts?

While legitimate uses for those are rare, there are cases of very long URLs where they would be appropriate.

IMHO, URL shorteners make sense in an environment where post length is very limited (prime example: Twitter), but not in a forum like LQ, where post length limits are hardly ever hit. I certainly want to see where a link points to before clicking on it.

Edit: After a short check of the post mentioned by the OP, it seems to me that all of the links end up on the same blog, and doing searches for the text in the articles reveals that all of those I have tested are at least partially copied from other sites, sometimes even with the original screenshots. IANAL, but this might be a copyright violation and I am not sure if we should remove all the links, not for being shortened, but for linking to copyrighted material.

Thanks for the feedback. We don't have any plan to blacklist specific URL shortners, but it's always wise to check the URL before you decicde to browse IMHO.

--jeremy

Tinyurl has an option to create a shortened link that offers a preview.

Here's an example: http://preview.tinyurl.com/jbwplre