Hey #Fediverse can I ask you a favor?

[drahardja@sfba.social]

@iampytest1 @benbe Nice! I use Link Unshortener which has a user-editable list of known tracker queries.

[nilesjohnson@mathstodon.xyz]

@drahardja @elduvelle a new link shortener, based on the good advice "don't use link shorteners"

[estelle@mstdn.social]

@drahardja i've ended up with a, well, "distinctive" writing style to my own head as a result of having to work through a 500 character limitation as well as all the other pressures on posting on fedi

trust me, the "every URL is 23 characters" rule is a *godsend* for attribution

links absolutely do not need to be shortened here, and the full URL is more informative anyways!

(you should try to strip tracking parameters though. nobody has any use for that)

[dmacphee@mas.to]

@drahardja

Here is more info

https://lifehacker.com/tech/duckduckgo-copy-clean-link

[drahardja@sfba.social]

@dmacphee Ah, so this trims tracking queries, but it doesn’t unshorten links. I think this solves a *different* (also important) problem.

[sharksonaplane@mastodon.sandwich.net]

@drahardja somehow despite having zero tech knowledge I can already tell that every reply fly who did this bullshit vibecoded whatever tf it was they're desperately trying to recommend

which just makes your original point stronger I guess?? because who is gonna trust vibecode trash from a chucklefuck with no reading comprehension or sense of boundaries? 😂

[bobkmertz@techhub.social]

@iampytest1
@ferrix they were caught doing very malicious things including running DDoS from captcha apps to taking part in a smear campaign when a journalist uncovered an identity (I think I got that all right but it's from memory).

[diazona@techhub.social]

@drahardja It kind of blows my mind that *multiple* people have replied to you trying to justify the use of link shorteners with arguments that aren't even logically coherent, and they don't seem to realize it 🤦

[innowen@wellduck.me]

@CatsWander @drahardja
this made me cackle. especially the sticker

[catswander@mastodon.social]

@innowen Glad you liked it… did you check out my Alt text? 😁

[innowen@wellduck.me]

@CatsWander

lol yhhhhh….. no 😛😍

[cliftonr@wandering.shop]

@drahardja

This is the last 30 years of Internet social interaction in a nutshell.

[k_purpose@post.lurk.org]

@drahardja
Info for anyone who could find it interesting. Not exactly a reply but somewhat related, since we're not going to be able to stop the world from sharing shortened links and tracked links:

I use an F-droid app called URLCheck before opening all and every link.

With it, you can strip the links of tracking parts, unshort them (that usually takes two-three clicks in "unshort" until you get the 200-OK message), manually delete the useless parts you consider, and choose which app you want to open them with (this doesn't always work perfectly for some reason).

I edit to add: "it doesn't always work" means that the app doesn't always detect if you have a specific app to open a particular link, and it'll offer you only a browser, for instance.

I'm not a tech person, so there could be something undesirable in that app that I don't know about, but generally I feel better using it as my default app for opening links.

[draoicrogall@mastodon.social]

@drahardja I didn't know link character count was standardised here, that's interesting!

[oldcoder@dansu.org]

@ADHDruid : The reasoned tone is appreciated. Others have been peremptory. Peremptory isn't appreciated as much. I've promised to respond further to one of that group today. I'll include responses to your post as part of that post.

[oldcoder@dansu.org]

My response to what's been said is about 11 pages or 24,000 characters. The post limit is only 5,000 characters. So, I'll need to link you to the response as a separate page.

The link is, of course, a short link. It's regex, too. Regex is better than sex, I always say. Any of the following spellings will work:

https://dansu.org/shortlink
https://dansu.org/shortlinks
https://dansu.org/short-link
https://dansu.org/short-links

Did I mention that my approach works even when people use variant spellings by mistake? Regardless, I've covered what I can in 11 pages. It's incomplete, but it'll need to do for tonight.

[oldcoder@dansu.org]

My response to what's been said is about 11 pages or 24,000 characters. The post limit is only 5,000 characters. So, I'll need to link you to the response as a separate page.

The link is, of course, a short link. It's regex, too. Regex is better than sex, I always say. Any of the following spellings will work:

https://dansu.org/shortlink
https://dansu.org/shortlinks
https://dansu.org/short-link
https://dansu.org/short-links

Did I mention that my approach works even when people use variant spellings by mistake? Regardless, I've covered what I can in 11 pages. It's incomplete, but it'll need to do for tonight.

[oldcoder@dansu.org]

Mr. Rossolini, it's after lunchtime there, but it's not long before the sun rises here and I need to sleep. This said, I'm compelled to respond.

One trivial note is that Mr. PHP is a long-time PHP development firm. He's been in PHP as long as you have. I said that I'd worked for him. That should hardly come across as fantasy.

And in the U.S. people laugh when I offer the Jack Bauer joke. If it doesn't parse for somebody in France, Mea Culpa.

Do I need to spell out the joke? To say that one has worked for UK-NCIS on anti-terrorism suggests that one is claiming to have had an exciting time. The joke is in popping that balloon.

The rest of your letter can be summed up in two sentences: I DID NOT TALK ABOUT DOING WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. YOU IMAGINED IT.

JE N'AI PAS PARLÉ DE FAIRE CE QUE VOUS PARLEZ. VOUS L'AVEZ IMAGINÉ.

Nothing in your post except for the Mr. PHP and Jack Bauer parts is relevant or even sane.

You've struck me as being as civil as Mr. Druid is in your own way. Don't think that I haven't noticed. So, I'd like it to be clear that it isn't my desire to be blunt.

But you haven't read a word that I've written about what I've proposed. This has reached the point of The Twilight Zone.

Don't block me unless you feel that you must. I'd prefer for this not to end with ill feeling. But to end this at all I need to point out that your first point here is retarded.

Not just a little retarded. Hero, it's I.Q. zero. I'm not trying to be Nero. What I'm telling you is true and understanding needs to ensue.

Please consider Forrest Gump's famous advice to her son. Then read the following.

OF COURSE I log IPV4s. It happens WHETHER OR NOT I redirect links that are going to MY OWN CONTENT. Do you truly not understand, after all of these posts, that this is about links to MY OWN CONTENT ?

BIEN SUR, j'enregistre les IPV4. Cela arrive QUE je redirige ou non les liens qui mènent vers MON PROPRE CONTENU. Vous ne comprenez vraiment pas, après tous ces posts, qu'il s'agit de liens vers MON PROPRE CONTENU ?

Are you an assassin sent to kill me with frustration? It makes sense, because that probably isn't prosecutable. If you aren't such an assassin, read what I've told you a dozen times. Until now, this has been about links to MY OWN CONTENT.

Regarding your 2nd point: Until tonight, I haven't said a thing about doing this as a service. Or even about pointing to a page or post that wasn't mine [except once as an aside].

Read what you just said in your 2nd bullet item. You've criticized me for not spelling out your own concerns to you. But your concerns have nothing to do with what I proposed. Why would I spell out something that has nothing to with me?

That goes even further than @ADHDruid with his explanation that I'm "normalising" bad behavior by doing something that even looks similar to what the two of you abhor.

All of the rest is the same thing! I DID NOT TALK ABOUT DOING WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. YOU IMAGINED IT.

JE N'AI PAS PARLÉ DE FAIRE CE QUE VOUS PARLEZ. VOUS L'AVEZ IMAGINÉ.

Enough. Truly. Do you not see that you're talking to a straw man? I'm not here to be a straw man for either of you.

I have a bet with myself. I'm dealing with two people who are intelligent and think of themselves as honorable. Are they able to do what their victim is requesting; actually read what has been written as opposed to making him feel that the world is populated with automatons?

My guess is that the answer is "No".

That is a downer. I don't need downers in my life right now. Do please go away until you're able to read what is written.

The impossibility of communicating such basic points to people who are supposed to be intelligent is more disappointing than I'd expected. It pops a balloon that isn't a joke at all.

I've been moving towards the next stage of my evolution. This exchange is a decent enough trigger. It goes to the heart of what one expects from others. But what will I become next?

[oldcoder@dansu.org]

I've denied nothing. Instead, I've been incredibly patient. I've gone without sleep for two full nights just to accommodate nonsense. I'll add that sun is up here now.

Somebody has commented in DM that I should have blocked all of you sooner. I didn't, and don't want, to do so because it would go against my standard for dealing with people whose intent is to be civil.

And why would I care if a suggestion was "dismissed" by you? It was for those who found it useful. You simply appeared and started to hammer away at something that hadn't been said.

It doesn't change much to say now that I'm "in denial". What is it possible to deny? It's all right there in black & white. You're denying what any reader is able to see [and the person who just DM'd me noticed it].

There is no "technical discussion" to "side step". Your entire list of "technical points" had nothing to do with anything that I'd said. That is an observable fact. If you're not able to read or understand that sentence or that fact, you, Son, are an automaton.

If that is the case, you don't exist. You're a P-Zombie. I need to accept the fact that most people are. The point calls for reflection.

[oldcoder@dansu.org]

That content is mine, Mr. Rossolini. Read the author's name.