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What should be our policy for links formatting, should we allow links like this one:

http://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/2009/05/optimization-blob-caching-and-http-304s.html

or we should edit these into something more reader friendly like this.

Update: Sometimes I edit these and convert them to real links as new users are not allowed to add real links, but have noticed many experienced users use the same format so I am wondering if I should continue to convert these...

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  • By policy do you mean we would be enforcing this? I don't know if I want to be the link police... :)
    – Kit Menke
    Apr 27, 2011 at 13:28
  • No... :)))) Sometimes I edit these and convert them to real links as new users are not allowed to add real links, but have noticed many experienced users use the same format so I am wondering if I should continue to convert these... Apr 27, 2011 at 15:00

2 Answers 2

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I find full links easier to author when mobile and pasting from a text editor. And when viewing mobile, I can see the where the link goes without clicking it. Full links also seem to give more credit to the original content authors.

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  • heh, yeah I tend to format links "nicely" when I'm on my PC and be more sloppy when im answering Q's from my iPad May 3, 2011 at 10:17
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One of the goals of Stack Exchange is to minimise noise, so we can all get to what we need with as little friction as possible. It's also about making the content enticing to encourage quality contributions.

I'd regard URLs as ugly noise. They don't provide much context on their own, look unattractive and unfriendly, and can take up a lot of screen space. I probably wouldn't edit a post solely to clean up a URL, but I would if there was any other reason to edit the post.

As djeeg mentions, it's not easy to see where a URL leads on mobile, but I'd argue it's not our job to fix the interface of a device.

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