Why Do These Links Look Weird

January 17, 2011 12:49 PM

Is there a reason so many of the links posted here look like jibberish to me?

A mouse-over indicates the links go to legitimate sites but I'm not excited about clicking on something I can't read. Any idea what's going on?

posted by thewestinggame to MetaFilter-Related at 12:49 PM (29 comments total)

...oreo?
posted by mannequito at 1:04 PM on January 17, 2011

RTFQ?
posted by Threeway Handshake at 1:06 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's people using ROT13. You can mouseover the links to see where they're going, but for people who are touchy about spoilers [and oh boy does MeFi have people touchy about spoilers] this means they don't accidentally see a title which, in conjunction with the premise of the question, wrecks it for them.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:06 PM on January 17, 2011

oh boy does MeFi have people touchy about spoilers

And oh boy do we ever also have people who are touchy about people who are touchy about spoilers....
posted by dersins at 1:11 PM on January 17, 2011 [8 favorites]

Any idea what's going on?

No, but then I've been drinking kerosene since about 8am. So here I am, sitting in my underwear, holding this idling weed-wacker, and I'm pretty sure that no one else in this corporate finance meeting is really all that comfortable with where this has gone either.

Unfortunately, I can't stop making eye-contact, so I'm guessing this is going to get weird.
posted by quin at 1:13 PM on January 17, 2011 [27 favorites]

I enjoy the ones that for reasons of non-alphabetic symbol content rot13 doesn't help much with. Like, Bprna'f 11? Heh.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:16 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

2001: N Fcnpr Bqlffrl
posted by yeti at 1:19 PM on January 17, 2011 [3 favorites]

Spoilers, seriously? Everyone knows Luke is Leia's sister.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:20 PM on January 17, 2011

Luke who?
posted by cjorgensen at 1:31 PM on January 17, 2011

Han shot first, Mama sang tenor...
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:40 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Cool Hand Luke.
posted by fixedgear at 1:41 PM on January 17, 2011

Greg Nog: “It's worth noting that in addition to Rot13, some of the answers are being supplied in Hopelandic, by members of Sigur Ros.”

Little-known fact: Hopelandic is actually Icelandic run through Rot13.
posted by koeselitz at 1:54 PM on January 17, 2011

Ferfoksayk.
posted by Elmore at 2:13 PM on January 17, 2011

is better than sbe shpx fnxr
posted by Elmore at 2:14 PM on January 17, 2011

Something is rot13n in the state of Qraznex.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:44 PM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

and oh boy does MeFi have people touchy about you-name-it.
posted by Tuesday After Lunch at 3:45 PM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

I thought ROT-13 was declared illegal around here?
posted by Meatbomb at 4:09 PM on January 17, 2011

it's gibberish, BTW.
posted by wilful at 4:17 PM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

if ($todaysDate - $mediaPublishDate > 60 && $threadTopic NEAR $mediaTopic) {
     $worldRevolvesAroundUser = FALSE;
     $booHoo = 1;
}

posted by maxwelton at 4:24 PM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Rhubarb is a good kind of pie.
posted by killdevil at 4:33 PM on January 17, 2011

the OP of this question is a bit eponysterical too, really (awesome book tho, ennit?)
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 4:55 PM on January 17, 2011

RNC PR BS

Spolier: That's what you get when you remove all the vowels from Reince Priebus' name.
posted by gman at 4:56 PM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Why on earth use rot13 when the link text could read "here" or "link" or any random word?
posted by fire&wings at 5:47 PM on January 17, 2011

The Ayers Way of Woody Woodpecker.
posted by clavdivs at 6:54 PM on January 17, 2011

I used to ROT13 everything I wrote, for security reasons. A couple years back, though, I realized it wasn't that secure after all, so nowadays I double-encode.
posted by flatluigi at 7:07 PM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's worth noting that in addition to Rot13, some of the answers are being supplied in Hopelandic, by members of Sigur Ros.

I thought it was the Super Furry Animals answering the question in Cymraeg.
posted by daniel_charms at 3:52 AM on January 18, 2011

So it wasn't Qwghlmish?
posted by Splunge at 7:33 AM on January 18, 2011

grfn blrgr totally sucked BTW.
posted by Mister_A at 12:15 PM on January 18, 2011

Firefox users can install the Leet Key extension for convenient in-place rot13 encode/decode, among other things.
posted by flabdablet at 9:52 PM on January 18, 2011