PonyFilter: Remove titles from URL via preference setting?

May 9, 2007 1:32 PM

PonyFilter: Can we add a preference to remove the post titles from URLs? I occasionally read Metafilter from work. I clicked the Baby playing with a snake post and had a moment of terror as I viewed the URL.
posted by jeversol to Feature Requests at 1:32 PM (22 comments total)

What exactly terrorized you? Fucking? Fucking is permited on metafilter. Likewise fucking is permisable in ask.metafilter. Fucking is encouraged in metatalk.
posted by bigmusic at 1:45 PM on May 9, 2007

bigmusic, jeversol may not have a problem with URLs containing the word "fucking," but his boss might.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:46 PM on May 9, 2007

I'd recommend not visiting the internet as a whole in that case.
posted by prostyle at 1:57 PM on May 9, 2007

I find it useful in AskMe, however, so I'd hate to have it gone from those URLs.
posted by NationalKato at 1:58 PM on May 9, 2007

I occasionally read Metafilter from work

If doing that is going to be a problem, maybe you should stop.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:04 PM on May 9, 2007

It is kind of annoying that the question can look safe for work and then the URL is not. I realize it should be up to users to hover and check and yadda yadda, but ... it's annoying.
posted by occhiblu at 2:05 PM on May 9, 2007

Faint of Butt: If it's in the URL, then it's also in the page <title> and in the first line of the post.
posted by mendel at 2:06 PM on May 9, 2007

mendel, argument being that IT might be running a content filter on the URL traffic, independent of the actual page content.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:08 PM on May 9, 2007

On the other hand, eh. Hover and check; if the url has problematic content, copy it, paste into address bar, trim off everything after the thread-id and trailing slash, hit enter, rejoice.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:10 PM on May 9, 2007

I will throw it out there that the titles-in-URLs throw me for a loop at work as well. No one's snooping on what sites I'm visiting, but we have a lame-o filter with a blocking algorithm that apparently weights naughty words in URLS higher than naughty words in page content.

So, while I can't go to a website with a URL like "metafilter.com/fuck", I can usually view a page that says fuck (as long as it doesn't say it too often) if the URL is innocent looking. As a result, I miss good juicy MeFi posts at work and forget to check them at home.

That said, I don't really think there's a need for preferences to "fix" this. It's my issue because of my work's crappy web filter and life goes on. It happens to me with other sites as well - for example, I can never read Lifehacker's "Office supply fetish" posts because of the word fetish in the URL.

Ha. And I tried to preview just now and the preview comment page was also blocked. I probably won't be able to see this thread until I get home. I guess we passed the fuck:other words content ratio that sets off the filter.

Stupid work.
posted by misskaz at 2:13 PM on May 9, 2007

Can we have an option to use IP addresses only in links, preferably in some sort of encoding not commonly used?
posted by blue_beetle at 2:13 PM on May 9, 2007

Without this, you just get surprised when you click through with no warning.
posted by smackfu at 2:13 PM on May 9, 2007

I think cortex's idea is a good solution to this.
posted by puke & cry at 2:16 PM on May 9, 2007

maybe you need the opposite of this script.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:25 PM on May 9, 2007

It ought to be easy enough to write a script to replace certain words and phrases with asterisks or something in the title tags and the url links.
posted by Dave Faris at 2:29 PM on May 9, 2007

You can't be bothered to hover and check? I really don't see this being a problem. Y'know..maybe...work while you're at work?
posted by graventy at 2:36 PM on May 9, 2007

Dagnabbed Samuel L. Jackson and his troublemaking, snake-hating, potty mouth!
posted by miss lynnster at 2:43 PM on May 9, 2007

Y'know..maybe...work while you're at work?

Dude. It's way easier to blame MeFi when you get canned.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:44 PM on May 9, 2007

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/14162/Ah-not-this-shit-again
posted by evilcolonel at 4:01 PM on May 9, 2007

So, stop fucking around on metafilter at work, fucker.
posted by armoured-ant at 4:28 PM on May 9, 2007

graventy for some work comprises mostly of just being a warm body. Either because the need for actual action is indeterminate (EG: Firefighter) or consists mostly of just being there (EG: parking lot attendant).
posted by Mitheral at 9:13 AM on May 10, 2007

Metafilter: Fucking? Fucking is permitted on Metafilter.
posted by quin at 12:25 PM on May 10, 2007