Hello MNHQ - a question about automatic links please?

[rhondajean]

Seems that quite a few of us are now having names of online shops come up as automatic links.

Eg(and fingers crossed these work!

Argos
Next
Marks and spencers
Wilkes
Toys r us

Can you confirm if this is a new addition to MN or are we all infected with something nasty?

Thankoo!

please can we have two different colours.

I don't want to miss out on someone's hilair per una link because I mistook it for a bog standard M&S one.

I think it implies that the poster is endorsing the link too and that is wrong and intrusive. It also looks terrible and I think twice before revisiting a site where this is done.

It may generate some income but I think a lot of posters will vote with their feet if this is permanent.

Also what if someone has had a bad experience or talking about a sensitive issue? Bad taste and wrong imho.

dorothy perkins

mango

H&M

oooh selective

i hate tesco
dorothy perkins

Yep - you're placing advertisements directly into our posts, making it look like it was done by us. It's all very Big Brother.

I'd appreciate a different colour, tbh.

I don't mind paid-for ads if they are signposted as such. We don't pay to be here, after all. What I do mind is not knowing if a poster is trying to help with a link, or being hijacked. It blurs the editorial/paid for line too much IMO. Different colours would resolve that and we'd all know where we stand.

I mentioned Premier Inn in a positive context today, and with the link auto-infilled it read like an advertorial. Kind of embarrassing. One of the great things about MN is people tend to be sharp about fake puffery for goods/services. This feels like a stealth intrusion on that, so different colours, flagging up that it's not the poster's own link, would help demarcate.

I'm not seeing any links smug

Isn't it obvious on threads whether it's an auto link or a user link from the content?

Surely if I say - I went to B&Q this afternoon and B&Q becomes a link then it's automatic, but if I say I bought this today it's a link I've created - people don't really do a link without it being obvious do they? ie 'Do you like these shoes or these?' rather than 'I bought some shoes at John Lewis' and JL being a link.

Sorry - struggling to see the problem really - other than it would have been good to have been told before it was done so it didn't look like malware.

This is a bit weird, I've never known a site do this, but then this is the only forum I use.

Just to see what happens:
Debenhams

Didn't work anyway!

Can someone tell me if this works please?

Tesco

Oh, thats really weird. I posted and it wasn't a link then I came back to the page after going to another and suddenly it was a link!

Gina Ford

No that wasn't going to happen, was it?

PerUna
Per Una

Annabel Karmel

Phew

I've just worked out one way of avoiding it. Just type cuntingtalktalk or cuntingsainsbury's without the correct capitalisation.

Which irritates the pedant in me, but not as much as the automatic linkys do.

Bet their algorithm hasn't been designed to deal with THAT one!

No Randall it didn't. Tesco.

SWMNBN

TSSDNCOP

Ah, just wondered.

I use adblocker so can't see any but just wondered if I could "make" them IYSWIM!

eBay ?

Or an acronym for those that dislike the use of 'cunting' on MN - maybe NPLT (Not Purposely Linked To) before a company name?

Can come up with a myriad of ways to get around this. Just wish I didn't have to.

I left an epilepsy support forum I had used for 6 years when they did this. I am aggrieved that MNHQ have done this. It will affect the free-flow of posts on here.

I posted this on the other thread:

Apparently small letters don't make links, so argos, marks and spencer etc are ok. As is cuntingsainsburys (all one word, no capitals).

So we have a choice - use capitals correctly and link inadvertently, or give up on our inner pendants and use small letters and no spaces.

I will join you in your wails, Mary. But I will be less pedantic if it means I'm not inadvertently linking!