Links ... and a nit [#3073059]

Nit first. Depreciated should be deprecated. (in the statement about links)

Second: while I agree that links can suffer from link-rot and sometimes point to spam there are quite a few situations where posting a link to a site where a problem (or solution) exists can be helpful. Most of us know by now that a link in a six year old Forum post is likely to be obsolete. And most of us are careful about linking to sites and what we do when we get there.

That said, I've worked out quite a good way of running image galleries with menus pointing to them. When someone asks about it in the forums and I can point them to my site to see how it works: well that beats trying to describe it, especially since we can't post screen captures in the forums either. Similarly, if I have a problem and can point someone to it, it helps them to diagnose it. Sometimes.

I appreciate the work that's being done here and hope you will consider the above. Thanks.

Comments

Comment #1

6 August 2019 at 20:31

fkelly created an issue. See original summary.

Comment #2

gisle

he/him

Norwegian Bokmål

Norway

commented 7 August 2019 at 05:05

Thanks for the heads-up. I've corrected the spelling of "deprecated".

As for the note about links being deprecated: I agree that links, given the right context, can be helpful and useful. As you say, experienced community members take care when they are linking to external sites. Links are not in any way banned in forums.

First: Users with the "Confirmed" user role (who are not subject to automatic spam filtering) will not be impeded if they choose to include links in their forum posts. Users without this role are subject to automatic spam filtering, and our (IMHO) too vigilant spam filter will automatically and silently unpublish a post if it detects spam. If a post contain one or more links, this is more likely to happen, and a think it is fair to warn new community members about it.

Second: Link spam is a huge problem in the support forums. The typical MO is that a new user parachutes into some forum and posts something like the posts quoted below (this is just some of the posts I have deleted this week):

I am working on the same problem. Please visit my website [link] where I am planning to put some more details next days or weeks. Planning to upload a demo video to show the full process.

Hi sir. I want install Drupal on my site [link]. Can you please suggest how to migrate to it. I am a fresher to Drupal. Please help at the earliest.

Hi, team! Please help me to convert my html site [link] from the Wordpress to the Drupal. I have basic knowledge. Can you explain to me the procedure for the Drupal.

Please check out my site [link]. Is converting to Drupal feasible?

I am not sure if they are all spam (some may just be due to basic cluelessness). But I hope you agree with that none of these links serve any useful purpose whatsoever. Having given fair warning in the forum guidelines about links being deprecated, I don't have to feel bad about summarily deleting them.

Btw. anyone can post screen captures in forums. The problem is that the process is quite complicated. You first need to upload the image to Drupal.org, figure out its relative path, and insert an <img>-tag with a link to the image in your post. Some of our users have a hard time figuring this out (and I don't blame them).