Suggestion: Mods edit posts with super long links

[Parsons]

I don't think I'm the only person who browses this forum on a mobile device on a regular basis. The forums aren't too difficult to navigate even though they aren't designed to be viewed on a mobile device.

However, what makes them almost unreadable is when someone posts a gigantic link (or humongous photo). It makes all the posts on the page super wide and you have to scroll back and forth to read each line.

I will provide a specific example with the understanding that I'm not trying to pick on anyone and mean no offense. Lighthead seems to be a friendly and helpful for member who probably isn't aware its even causing an issue.

Example:

(07-25-2015, 05:25 PM)Lighthead Wrote:  http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/D%20-%20Chinese%20Mahayana%20Buddhism/Authors/Hsing%20Yun/On%20Magic%20and%20the%20Supernatural/The%20Buddhist%20Perspective%20on%20Magic%20and%20Supernatural.htm

Now here's the SUPER easy fix to this dilemma (of do I share this helpful but super long link): 

go to http://goo.gl
copy paste your huge link in there
press 'shorten URL'
copy paste the shortened URL

Here is the shortened version of Lighthead's link: http://goo.gl/AMGguB

Voilà, no more stretched page! Plus the contents linked is exactly the same.

Now of course if you are willing to do this on your own without help from a mod, be my guest. But what I am asking of the community: Would you like the mods to edit posts with a shortened URL if the message is stretching out the page? It would be a very similar service to them moving threads in that no content would be lost.

[Plenum]

(07-27-2015, 04:18 AM)Parsons Wrote:  Now of course if you are willing to do this on your own without help from a mod, be my guest. But what I am asking of the community: Would you like the mods to edit posts with a shortened URL if the message is stretching out the page? It would be a very similar service to them moving threads in that no content would be lost.

Hi Parsons,

I'll link this thread for the Mods for internal discussion (including Steve, to see if there's a technical solution for the horizontal stretching).

I also have an issue with high-res images deforming the forum experience, even on a laptop.

Self-Adjustments:

1) use imgur to upload photos, but you can choose an upload size (800x600 for eg).

2) use the 'insert link' icon to attach a hyperlink to a piece of text

[Bluebell]

*raises hand*

i'd like to note that Parsons is in violation of the inevitable evil no stretchy rule and should be banned for hypocrisy.

[Matt1]

I don't consider it to be that a big deal, its only a link as long as you have some text explaining what your linking to, its not a major issue for me. Having shorten links sometime makes me wonder if the website is dodgy.

[Plenum]

(07-27-2015, 09:03 AM)Matt1 Wrote:  Having shorten links sometime makes me wonder if the website is dodgy.

yes, having shortened links can be a bit dodgy, as, ultimately, you don't know what you are clicking on.  You can go to those websites like bit.ly and expose the shortened link, but most people don't have the time (or patience) for that.

The old forum software actually had the better behaviour.  It automatically truncated links after 15 characters (or however many), and you could still click on the hyperlink, and you could hover over the link to see the full address, but it did this automatically.

For eg, when I originally indexed the In the Now Radio Shows, all the mp3 links were truncated when the post was displayed.

The ideal solution would be:

1) truncate long links
2) resize images bigger than 800x width, with an option to click to see the full size.

Both would be behaviours that affected the displaying of posts automatically, and don't alter the fundamental post itself.

[Great Central Sun]

Or alias the link name to describe the link with a title, and have the URL in the background.

[Parsons]

Yeah, I realize the shortened URLs can look a bit dodgy... My reasoning was 90%+ of the URLs being shortened would be Google search links in the first place so changing it to a goo.gl link would be a lateral move. Plus I consider any website with a URL that long is going to be inherently because the website creator doesn't know what they are doing.

But I agree, having forum plugins fix both problems would be ideal.

[Bring4th_Austin]

Just a quick update to say that both of these issues theoretically have a build-in fix for the forums to where the mods would not have to actively be fixing these things, but they will be done automatically. There is a bit of a compatibility issue between the current forum theme we use and the most recent version of MyBB which may prevent these fixes from being implemented. We're working on it with our fingers crossed.

In the event the automatic system can't be fixed, I'm totally in favor of editing forum-breaking posts. For the sake of moderator time, I think the best way to do this would be to just put any images or overly-long links behind URL tags like this. Not ideal but better than having the entire page stretched by a single post.