Please tell me you haven't gone all Tabke on me...
Cart before the horse but...
http://th3core.com/talk/hardware-technology/chrome-extension-make-links-from-text/
why are active link turned off ?
To stop spamming muthas. If it can't be done there is no temptation. Not really for the current crew as all are recommended and vouched for but as this gets bigger that probably won't be the case.
Also, Heather, the nature of this board is such that we don't necessarily want to attract attention from an institution we are referencing. On our old board we were very disabled all links not because we didn't trust each other but because we didn't want prying eyes. I know this place is accessible from the outside, but why push it given the nature of much of our business.
I realize it's more work but I agree clickable links would be nice.
Suggestion: We could redirect all links through a dynamic script.
The script would take in the link and print a javascript replace 'redirect' which does not leave any referrer.. same as we did in the old core, but this time the javascript could be printed by a script that has determined one is actually logged in to this board.
That way nobody can follow the links just by clicking but members, and no referrers will be leaked.
If it could be in perl I'll be happy to help create or host it if you do not want to host it here.
The alternative is people playing with Firefox addons and leaving referrers I guess,
With the Firefox and Chrome extensions, Jangro says we're showing referrers anyway. Given the browsing proficiency and renowned laziness of the membership, you have to figure we're leaving a mark maybe 15-20% of the time. My question is whether redirection scripts would disable the extensions?
>redirection scripts would disable the extensions
Yes because they would be regular links to the browser so the extensions are not triggered
If this were truly a secret place that needed to be kept that way, then I could see implementing javascript redirects and further inconveniencing the members to achieve zero leaks. But since the forum isn't actually private, I don't see the point of going through such pains and efforts.
Given the audience, there's a significant percentage who might have javascript disabled and there could be referers leaking out anyway. All it takes is one to get into someone's logs and the cat's out of the bag. And webmasters will find posts anyway with google alerts on the public posts that get indexed.
The solution that's in place now will at least keep referers under the radar where there won't be spikes of referer activity on new posts since most people will be cut-n-pasting.
And we still discourage the spammers from posting links.
Good enough IMO.
jangro - why javascript?
Can't we just use the same sort of php link redirecting that we use when hiding where aff links come from - no inconvenience other than the setup.
Have been in other forums where that works just fine - unless I am missing something (which is always possible)
Speaking just for myself, I'm OK with it as it is but given a choice I'd rather shut down referrers as much as possible. Experience says we're not going to pull in a significant number of high quality long-term contributors with referrers. I'd like to stay primarily word-of-mouth. (Kill the bots, too, but that's another topic.)
> why javascript?
Just because that's what Damian suggested. (and from what I understand it does work as long as JS is turned on.)
> php
A simple php redirect with the <?header("Location:$url");?> command doesn't hide a referer. Most browsers will take the redirect and pass the original referer through. I just tested it and saw the referer in my logs.
A meta refresh works on some browsers, but not all. Though when it doesn't strip the referer, the page with the refresh on it is reported as the referer, not the original page. So if the meta refresh was hosted on a different domain, that would accomplish the goal I guess.
There may be less-trivial ways to accomplish this with multiple redirects, but I've never had the need to discover those. Sounds like JasonD's got a solution. I'd like to learn what that is.
> we're not going to pull in a significant number of high quality long-term contributors with referrers
Agreed. I'm not advocating for or against referers for any reason. I just don't feel like it's worth great efforts to suppress them 100%.
Though at some point soon we'll reach spending more time talking about it than it would take to do it. ;)
> I'm not advocating for or against referers for any reason. I just don't feel like it's worth great efforts to suppress them 100%.
The only reason FOR, imo, is that we'll reduce the work for mods and general noise by culling before it happens. The quality level of those members riding in on a ref just generally sucks. They'll stay long enough to defend/promote their topic then be gone.
The only reasons AGAINST, imo, are that it adds another level of complexity to forum development and it'll be yet another something that we'll have to migrate to ver 2.
>Though at some point soon we'll reach spending more time talking about it than it would take to do it.
Yes, but it's good debate practice.
>Open or Closed, somewhere in the middle is "awkward".
Agreed. But we need some sort of honey pot out there. Most of what we'll get will be flies, true, but hopefully not all.
What is wrong with copy and paste.
Problem solved. No refererrs.
Whenever I have been involved in discreet forums the main reason was to conceal what was being talked about and protecting the secrecy of the forum, so much so htaccess pw were in place. If we point to stuff, especially in a negative or nosey way I would prefer that to remain discrete. At the end of the day not my call, but if it was I would be uber discrete. As the the usernet, whats that, isnt that for looking at porn? :-) uudecode and all that.
QuoteSo if the meta refresh was hosted on a different domain, that would accomplish the goal I guess
Exactly.
CPA affs have been doing this kind of thing for years in order to replace a dodgy referrer with a plausible one.
Not too complicated to do I think.
> not too difficult to do
Couldn't be simpler on the redirect end.
The unknown is getting the forum to do it. That's on littleman.