

Ask YC: Links in submission text? - bprater

What do you guys think about having linkable text when folks ask questions?<p>When people ask about their start-up, we are stuck with doing a copy-and-paste to view the site.<p>I don't see a downside to this, if the submission is spam, it won't rank high for long.<p>http://www.make-me-linkable.com/
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auston
Why not just make the link rel="nofollow" until it reaches a certain threshold
of points and or comments?

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nertzy
I really like this idea for links in general.

My only hesitation is that someone might see it as a reason to create false
accounts to game upvoting. Maybe a certain threshold of upvotes by users with
high karma is what it takes to remove nofollow from an auto-link?

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dfranke
I think the idea is to discourage using self-posts to preface links with your
own commentary rather than just posting a direct link.

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pg
Yes. This used to be a big problem.

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psyklic
Linkification for Firefox works wonders. Get the 1.3.4 Beta at the bottom of
the page for FF3:

<http://yellow5.us/firefox/linkification>

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noelchurchill
I'd rather not have to install a plugin to compensate for the lack of a
feature in a website.

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psyklic
Why should Firefox support plug-ins at all, if not to compensate for a lack of
features? Why should Emacs support scripting, if not to compensate for a lack
of features?

The point is that we enjoy FF plug-ins and Emacs scripts because they allow us
to customize these "featureless" products to our individual needs. Similarly,
I welcome plug-ins like Linkification and Scriptmonkey because they allow me
to customize websites to my individual needs.

I would be surprised if this were the only website that you would find the
Linkification plug-in useful for!

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noelchurchill
FF plugins are great. So are websites with basic features built into them,
such as the "hyperlink."

I don't know if there is anything more fundamental to making the internet a
"net" than the links connecting all the pages.

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immad
I think it is a good idea. I am always having to copy-paste and presumable the
code is done since comment links are clickable. <http://i-am-clickable.com/>

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nirmal
If you're a Safari user, select the text of the link and Ctrl+Click to select
"Go To Address".

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dcurtis
Wow, that's amazing; never knew of that feature before. Thanks.

Nice to know someone was thinking about this problem at WebKit. Does Firefox
do anything similar?

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dkasper
Wow, control click on something in firefox and it seems to highlight the
containing box (div perhaps).

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safetytrick
No way, try rocking a plugin like "text/link" to open these.

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joshwa
Just pretend you're in emacs-- C-c C-t C-v enter.

