Don’t just link. Say what the link is linking to so that people can follow the discussion without clicking.
It isn’t so bad when the link is self-explanatory, like a Wikipedia link. But IMDB? There’s nothing in the url that tells me what movie, or show, or actor, or director, or any other movie-type item is being linked to. You went to the effort of finding the link, say what it’s a link to.
That includes links within SDMB.
Many Dopers complain that their posts seem invisible. Perhaps some of you would get more replies if people knew what you were talking about without following links. Some of us can’t or won’t follow an unexplained link, so you’re limiting your already limited audience.
Oh, and can we skip the first half dozen replies with people just posting unexplained links and move right on to people calling me a poopyhead? Thanks!
Well, I wouldn’t have thought that this trait is worth Pitting, but you’re not a poopyhead for being annoyed by it.
There are some times, often with joke/humor posts, where leaving the link as a suprise still seems appropriate. But for the vast majority of link I’d think that simply giving some general information about what the link might be seems simple courtesy.
I really think there are posters that don’t realise that you can make the link say whatever you want. This is the easiest way to describe a link, make the little blue letters the topic of the link instead of some HTML protocol mumbo-jumbo.
I find that I just don’t click on un-described links. If you want your hard work to be viewed, you have to complete the task and describe it. Sell it, baby! Make me want to see what you’ve found!
ETA: Check your links before you post, too. Every time. If it doesn’t work or shoots clickers straight to an automatic download, you need to fix it.
But you didn’t elaborate on your “from here”. I mean c’mon. You can’t both complain about it **and ** do it. … Although upon reflection, some people actually can.
:rolleyes: How was I supposed to know that the undescribed link, in the pit thread you started to complain about undescribed links, was a link to the text you quoted?
It’s the thread in which a guy complains about people posting links just saying ‘this’ without explaining it, and reserves particular ire for when this is done with IMDB links. Thenceforth, the thread is witty banter back and forth using exclusively movie titles on IMDB, usually linked to without further explanation. Have I killed the comedy enough yet or would you like me to explain further?
This thread is destined to descend into an orgy of undescribed links and your point will be lost.
Which is a shame, because you’re right.
Worse is when people use tinyurl or something to shorten a link. At least I know an IMDB link is safe for work, not loaded with annoying flash or anything else. Tinyurl is for when you’re sharing urls in a non rich-text format, don’t do it on a website. Or a message board. And when you do do it describe the damn link. I’ve not seen it on this this but the commentaries on randi.org are terrible for it.
Of course if websites learnt to make short descriptive links then it’d all be moot.
Why do you need to describe every link. They are blue, they are underlined. I mean, I understand that there are some visually impaired readers who are accessing the web through non-standard browsers and can’t see the blue and the underline, but I am sure that if it matters to them, they already know that links are blue and underlined.
