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Can we stop putting forum thread names in links?

FieldTheorist

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I've been somewhat confused by this for a long time now, but it's finally become something of an issue, so I thought I'd finally raise it here. Firstly, this feature is extremely confusing, it clutters posts, and it appears by any measure to be unnecessary.

Secondly, it is now causing my post to take on a new meaning entirely. Take for instance this snippet of my recent post:

3.) So by my estimation, It's still not apples-to-apples. And this isn't my first time addressing this point, either. I and many others who're substantially further to the Left on this forum are not at all in the same boat as the culture that exists on the alt-Right.

It looks like I'm asking the poster "What's wrong with you?" for no reason whatsoever, but the problem is that I'm linking to a thread called "What's wrong with you?"

If we must have this feature, can we please do something like:

(Linked from "What is wrong with you?")

It seriously looks like I'm insulting this poster, and there's no reason for that and it's too late to edit the thread. And even if I could edit the thread, I can't edit out the offending part without removing the entire link.

So is it possible to change this? Or is this a PHP thing?
 
Ah, PHP, the 'just **** it' programming language of the web.
 
I've been somewhat confused by this for a long time now, but it's finally become something of an issue, so I thought I'd finally raise it here. Firstly, this feature is extremely confusing, it clutters posts, and it appears by any measure to be unnecessary.

Secondly, it is now causing my post to take on a new meaning entirely. Take for instance this snippet of my recent post:



It looks like I'm asking the poster "What's wrong with you?" for no reason whatsoever, but the problem is that I'm linking to a thread called "What's wrong with you?"

If we must have this feature, can we please do something like:

(Linked from "What is wrong with you?")

It seriously looks like I'm insulting this poster, and there's no reason for that and it's too late to edit the thread. And even if I could edit the thread, I can't edit out the offending part without removing the entire link.

So is it possible to change this? Or is this a PHP thing?

I used to post on a couple other PHP-based forums, and you could do set your own text to links to elsewhere in the forum with no trouble.
 
I've been somewhat confused by this for a long time now, but it's finally become something of an issue, so I thought I'd finally raise it here. Firstly, this feature is extremely confusing, it clutters posts, and it appears by any measure to be unnecessary.

Secondly, it is now causing my post to take on a new meaning entirely. Take for instance this snippet of my recent post:



It looks like I'm asking the poster "What's wrong with you?" for no reason whatsoever, but the problem is that I'm linking to a thread called "What's wrong with you?"

If we must have this feature, can we please do something like:

(Linked from "What is wrong with you?")

It seriously looks like I'm insulting this poster, and there's no reason for that and it's too late to edit the thread. And even if I could edit the thread, I can't edit out the offending part without removing the entire link.

So is it possible to change this? Or is this a PHP thing?

I agree that it can be annoying. But it can also be funny. :)
 
I've been somewhat confused by this for a long time now, but it's finally become something of an issue, so I thought I'd finally raise it here. Firstly, this feature is extremely confusing, it clutters posts, and it appears by any measure to be unnecessary.

Secondly, it is now causing my post to take on a new meaning entirely. Take for instance this snippet of my recent post:



It looks like I'm asking the poster "What's wrong with you?" for no reason whatsoever, but the problem is that I'm linking to a thread called "What's wrong with you?"

If we must have this feature, can we please do something like:

(Linked from "What is wrong with you?")

It seriously looks like I'm insulting this poster, and there's no reason for that and it's too late to edit the thread. And even if I could edit the thread, I can't edit out the offending part without removing the entire link.

So is it possible to change this? Or is this a PHP thing?

As a short term fix you can just edit the text to make it say, "My old thread here," or something....
 
Last edited:
Huh. I still see the "(What is wrong with you?)" part. Maybe it's a browser issue? I use Firefox...

...but I don't see it in the quoted text above! lol

The quote part is a Snip of what the screen looked like when I first created the post.
 
If the page is reloaded twice, it seems like the PHP code or the server recognizes it's an intra-forum link, and pastes the extra text.

Like I said, this is mostly just detracts from post clarity, honestly.
 
I used to post on a couple other PHP-based forums, and you could do set your own text to links to elsewhere in the forum with no trouble.

Yeah, I guess this is vBulletin, but in any case I'm not sure what can and cannot be changed based on the software the forum server uses. This may be a hard-coded feature of the software the forum uses. I've run into this problem before at forums I've modded.
 
When you first Submit/Preview the DP thread/post url, the software automatically adds the relevant vB BBCode [ url][ /url] (no spaces) and retrieves/adds the thread title in parentheses....

https://www.debatepolitics.com/west/295498-wrong-you.html


If however you only initially choose to Preview Post, look below the text box at Miscellaneous Options: and un-tick 'Automatically parse links in text'. This is then what you get with another Preview....

https://www.debatepolitics.com/west/295498-wrong-you.html <---- naked url without any link code or retrieved thread title

The above naked string can then be C&P into the address bar above or C&P in another tab address bar.

Unfortunately, this will also strip the code from any other post links. It's a clumsy work around and not a really satisfactory solution. It also assumes everyone will intuitively know to C&P the naked url string.

Perhaps the Mods or another member know a far simpler method, or ... the auto-title-retrieval feature may be hard-coded in the Board architecture.
 
I've been somewhat confused by this for a long time now, but it's finally become something of an issue, so I thought I'd finally raise it here. Firstly, this feature is extremely confusing, it clutters posts, and it appears by any measure to be unnecessary.

Secondly, it is now causing my post to take on a new meaning entirely. Take for instance this snippet of my recent post:



It looks like I'm asking the poster "What's wrong with you?" for no reason whatsoever, but the problem is that I'm linking to a thread called "What's wrong with you?"

If we must have this feature, can we please do something like:

(Linked from "What is wrong with you?")

It seriously looks like I'm insulting this poster, and there's no reason for that and it's too late to edit the thread. And even if I could edit the thread, I can't edit out the offending part without removing the entire link.

So is it possible to change this? Or is this a PHP thing?

All that I do when linking to other threads is simply say "link". As in: Link

or to see exactly what I do: url=<insert link here>]Link[/url
*add brackets were appropriate to the above of course...just before the first URL and at the end of the second URL*

Besides that....Don't worry about whether or not it seems like you yourself are saying it or not. If reported, which in my experience is never, the Mods will look at it, see that its a link to another thread at DP and take into account the linked to threads name to determine whether it was you saying it..or if its the thread title. And if the poster complains to you about it then simply explain to them what happened. Most people are reasonable...well...at least on such things as this.

Personally I like it. means that I don't have to copy/paste the thread name along with copy/pasting the link. Lazy I know. But tis life. :mrgreen:
 
All that I do when linking to other threads is simply say "link". As in: Link

or to see exactly what I do: url=<insert link here>]Link[/url
*add brackets were appropriate to the above of course...just before the first URL and at the end of the second URL*

Besides that....Don't worry about whether or not it seems like you yourself are saying it or not. If reported, which in my experience is never, the Mods will look at it, see that its a link to another thread at DP and take into account the linked to threads name to determine whether it was you saying it..or if its the thread title. And if the poster complains to you about it then simply explain to them what happened. Most people are reasonable...well...at least on such things as this.

Personally I like it. means that I don't have to copy/paste the thread name along with copy/pasting the link. Lazy I know. But tis life. :mrgreen:

Right, but is it possible to make the pasting of the thread name optional? It would be nice if I could just use some markup to make it not happen when I don't want it to happen.
 
Right, but is it possible to make the pasting of the thread name optional? It would be nice if I could just use some markup to make it not happen when I don't want it to happen.

On that I have no idea. You'll have to wait for an admin to reply for that one.
 
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