@cigien It means the Community user bumped the post to the front page. Although, given that is not actually the case, I'm unsure why SD thinks it happened. OTOH, the answer was previously reported.
@SmokeDetector From the translation, this appears to attempt to draw SO into the political issues in the US. It's possible that it's just dramatically misdirected, but it's definitely not something for any site on the SE network.
@SmokeDetector k They're affiliated to lambdatest. They were warned on a previous post, and they added affiliation to that post, but have failed to do it here again.
@CodyGray That pattern looks like it's already caught by Potentially bad keyword in body and Potentially bad keyword in answer; append -force if you really want to do that.
@CodyGray That would yield a lot of FP, so it's better to watch the specific extension. Also, it looks like you nuked their profile. If there was a link to the "Clario Tech Limited" website, or yazing.com on their profile, we should watch that.
@cigien I don't see how. It's a URL shortener. A post that contains that cannot be a FP virtually by definition. Fortunately, since it's a URL shortener, it's already on an implicit list of things to check against.
I have no idea what the profile contained. I didn't look. It doesn't matter. SD doesn't check profiles.
@CodyGray I'm not sure I follow. A URL shortener doesn't imply that a post is spam. Here's FP with cutt.ly. And we do watch websites that are only on profiles if there's a reasonable chance it might be used in future spam. It's a subjective call of course.
@cigien I would nuke any post containing a shortened URL.
Not subjective at all.
It's clearly spam; many of these services pay per click. Someone who is posting content to SE sites with the aim of making a profit by clicks is obviously a spammer.
Yeah true, not a big deal at all. Usually the website on their profile is mentioned in the post anyway.
@CodyGray I don't get the logic here. I mean, maybe those services make money from clicking through them, but people use those shorteners, right? e.g. would you nuke this as spam? stackoverflow.com/questions/65611952
Also, bit.ly is a URL shortener, right? SE currently has over 5000 FP with that. They're not all spam for sure.
@cigien With many of those services, the creator of the shortened link profits from them. The viewer is redirected to a "landing" page, where they are displayed ads. Both the service and the creator of the link profits from this.
@cigien Likely, yes. A single hyperlink that is self-evidently suspicious?
@TechExpertWizard That argument might be credible if the links were more than, say, 10k characters. At that point, you'd be running into the character limit of posts on Stack Exchange, which is 30k. At less than that number of characters, nobody really has an excuse. It's either obfuscation or worse.
And, yes, bit.ly is a perfect example. "Legitimate" URL shortening services are already blocked by Stack Exchange-imposed limitations. So if users are deliberately working around those blocks and choosing some lesser-known and unrecognized service, than that's abusive.
Sympathy? I'm not being clear I think. That post doesn't look like it's spam or that any cheating is going on. Do people even know they're not supposed to use shorteners on SE? I don't recall seeing that anywhere. Not that I've tried, so maybe the system warns when one tries to make a post like that?
Yes, most reasonable people I know would know that porn would not be allowed. I know you're making a point, but are you seriously comparing porn and URL shorteners?
@cigien if let CURL follow that link, it does get a location header but also loads the google tag manager script, to basically have a better idea of who you are.
A URL shortening service will take any URL you want, convert it into something apparently innocuous-looking, add tracking and analytics, sometimes add a cash payment or other incentive for the user based around ads, which can then be used to obscure legitimate content.
And bit.ly is a relatively "harmless" URL shortening service. It's widely known and fairly trustworthy. All it's going to add is maybe analytics and tracking.
Well, that and a complete obfuscation of the content that you're actually linking to.
As I've said, there are others like adf.ly that are even less legitimate (that's not itself a shortened URL; it's a link to the home page)
"Safe advertising" OK, whatever you say.
But don't take it from me. Take it from Portia, from the United States:
> I love AdF.ly because it lets my site be exposed to thousands of people all over the world. I get paid for sharing my links, a great way to earn cash.
Hmm, seems I was just wrong about the whole URL shortener thing, or at least had misunderstood their purpose. Thanks for clarifying @CodyGray and @rene
