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Comment by jsean | Hacker News Reader

Just a side note; what's the need for using an url shortener in a non character count restricted environment? I really don't like clicking a link I don't know the real destination for.

If I'm not the only one who feels like this there is, in this case, unfortunately a risk that Ron has already "lost" two or more votes.

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They're the only links I have. This is the way TechCrunch gives out the links for voting. Probably they do it to encourage people to use them in tweets.

With bit.ly (and j.mp) you can take

http://bit.ly/3Bxd

and turn it into

http://bit.ly/3Bxd+

and it'll give you the long link.

more importantly, it will give you a hell of a lot of data about the clicks on the link

You can go here to vote: http://crunchies2009.techcrunch.com/vote/

Analytics and retweeting?

> I really don't like clicking a link I don't know the real destination for.

Why not, when the source of the link is known? (As in this case--PG).

It is not just a matter of trusting the source, such as pg. A full URL also helps me decide whether to spend the time to visit and load the new page. User experience.

I'd vote to ban shortened URLs from HN posts and comments (edit: when full URLs are available).

Shortened urls are already banned from HN posts, mainly because spammers started to use them.

Using a url shortener shows you're "hip". If you just paste a url, people may worry you don't understand what's hot and what's not.

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