I am really fed up with clicking on an otherwise innocent link, only to find that goes to either a youtube site or worse, a site with an auto-play vid. Most of the time it is merely annoying, but because I access the SDMB while I’m working (totally permissable) it can be a serious pain to close down a link super-quickly (noisy videos are NOT permissable).
Can I suggest that whenever we post a link, we include a note as to whether it’s text only, a vid that needs clicking to activate or an auto vid? It would save many of us a lot of grief.
I think it’s a fine suggestion as a matter of courtesy, though hard to enforce by rule. When I mouse over in chrome, I see the actual address in the info bar at the bottom. I’ve seen that in other browsers too, is that an option for you?
Whenever I’m in a public place and I’m accessing pretty much anything, I turn the sound either off or way down. That’s probably good practice when you’re at work.
Not with quotes that have had the address replaced with (the equivalent of) ‘CHECK THIS OUT’. Many posters are kind enough to just leave the original address as the link, but just as many don’t. And for those links I get no address in the info bar.
It seems to be an especially common occurrence in threads discussing music or movies to post a youtube link, with only the word “this”. Personally, I’d really appreciate being told what the song/movie/scene is, without having to watch a video.
Even if the link is replaced with text, if you mouseover without clicking (well me, at least), the actual link is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the browser. I don’t know what browser you are using, but if you search for “view url in status bar” it should show you what I’m trying to describe.
I’ll second Twoflower. It’s easy enough to mouseover and see that it’s a YouTube video, but there’s no way of knowing which video without clicking it. Context is often useless for narrowing it down: For instance, if the thread is “What’s your favorite song?”, and the answer is YouTube link that says “this one”, well, it’s presumably a video of a song, but that’s still extremely broad.
iMDB links suffer the same problem. Amazon links, however, do not, because Amazon URLs include the title of the item (or at least, an abridged version of it) as part of the URL.
I think it’s common courtesy to tell people the nature of the link, to warn if it’s NSFW and if it’s a video to add a short description (some people won’t click video links while working). Also if you’re using Flashblock or Noscript you should disable them and check the page you’re linking for autoplay videos, etc before posting; I’ve fallen foul of that myself when posting a link in the past.
Can anyone please explain, for less savvy users such as myself, how seeing the address tells you everything you need to know about the link? Does every YouTube link mean its evil? Or not? What is the ‘tell’, you’re looking for exactly? Just so we can know too!
I don’t think anyone is saying that the address tells you everything you need to know but it does tell you exactly where you will be going if you click on it and that will at least give you advance warning of a video from YT.
I like to know if a link goes to YouTube when I’m on my tablet, because the link will open the YouTube app, which I sometimes don’t want. But regardless of which browser I’m using, there are ways to see the URL.
Except it doesn’t always. All too often instead of going to the address that shows in the mouseover, it goes to Vigilink first, which may or may not redirect it to the intended site. As frequently reported, sometimes a link to a product at an online store ends up going to a different store selling the same product.
Many posters are kind enough to just leave the original address as the link, but just as many don’t. And for those links I get no address in the info bar.