Forum:URL Compressors

From Talk:Spam Blacklist: URL Shorteners have been blocked from Wikimedia sites for years. Yet they aren't blocked here. They (eg. tinyurl) allow spammers to bypass any blacklist blocks. URL shorteners should be the highest priority in blocking. --Deafleas 20:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that URL shortener links are unnecessary on a wiki because either way, it' still one click. A message can be added to state the compressed link so visitors may access it directly in the future, but that could simply be in text form, and the actual link on the page could remain in its full form. As stated above, compressed URLs are like open proxies, and can easily be abused by having them redirect to inappropriate sites. The visitor won't be able to tell where he/she is actually going, and even though some URL compressors offer a preview feature, the visitor would have to have it enabled beforehand. Through the use of compressed URLs, the filtered sites on the Spam Blacklist could simply be evaded. Therefore, it would be a good idea to add such compressor sites to the Spam Blacklist. G .He (Talk!) 21:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Per GHe. There's no point for URL shortener on a wiki. Things would be different if we'd be talking about IRC chat, but we're not. Just blacklist the URL shorteners, they do no good. --Jack Phoenix (Contact) 21:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * For. --Splarka (talk) 05:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * For too, after seeing compressed URL three minutes after I've added full URL into spam blacklist. Szoferka 05:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought of suggesting Tinyurl be blocked some time ago. But Angela had a reasonable reason for that not to be done It's in my archive User talk:Dantman/Archive 1. ~Dantman(talk) tricks Mar 25, 2007 @ 07:23 (UTC)


 * In that case, we should probably have local exception lists to blacklisted sites instead so the local community can decide as a collective on whether they want certain blacklisted sites. Some blacklisted sites have rather inappropriate content, and vandals could simply use a tiny URL to vandalize. G .He (Talk!) 15:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I see blacklisted sites linked by URL shorteners constantly. I think it would be much easier to just either put nowiki tags around the site or to remove the http:// part. In addition, from my understanding, URL shorteners do cause pagerank increases because search engines process redirects. Deafleas 21:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with GHe. Maybe there could be a central Spam Blacklist and then on each wiki, a[n Un]Spam Whitelist or something.  -- 21:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Just add it to the local MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist in the same one-per-line regex format (looks like that got upgraded too). --Splarka (talk) 05:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * tinyurl\.com is now blacklisted. If a community feels the need to use that link compressor, simply exempt it in the way described by Splarka. G .He (Talk!) 04:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I feel strongly that this should not be blacklisted. Tinyurl and similar services are incredibly useful on wikis to prevent page widening of the edit box caused by long URLs. It's very annoying to get a horizontal scrollbar on the edit box. Spammers rarely use tinyurl since such links wouldn't increase their page rank, which is generally the reason for spamming. Tinyurl is extremely widely used and blocking it now will prevent people from editing - the message that appears when you try to save a page containing a blacklisted URL is very confusing to a new user who is more likely to give up than to figure out that they need to remove a certain URL before saving. Has anyone actually seen any spam containing tinyurl since external links started requiring captchas from unregistered users? I'm not convinced there is a need to blacklist an extremely useful service. I'm willing to reconsider if there are links to prove the need for this. Angela talk 04:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)