There are currently 1,140 references to a porn site on Stack Overflow. I'm planning on going on an edit spree to change them to something more appropriate (that is, example.org, net, or .com). I might do them all myself, but 1,140 is rather a lot, so some help would be appreciated. (Please also vote up that feature request I've linked to.)
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12I'm pretty sure the vast majority of those didn't intend to link to a porn site...– MysticialNov 12, 2013 at 23:45
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2Probably not, which is why I'm editing, not flagging. Either way, though, they should still be cleaned up.– TRiGNov 12, 2013 at 23:47
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18Is this really a problem? I'm quite sure that any reasonable person would look at those and interpret them as "example.com". Anyone that clicks on one of those deserves what they get.– user102937Nov 12, 2013 at 23:59
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4Except that if the link is in a post by a reasonably high reputation user, we're sending it a lot of Google Juice. (Only if they're actually links, of course, and not just a domain name in some text.)– aleNov 13, 2013 at 0:01
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4If you're like me, @RobertHarvey, you find it easier to read with reverse contrast, so you double-click on each paragraph as you're reading it. And sometimes you hit a link by mistake.– TRiGNov 13, 2013 at 0:01
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2lifehacker.com/5912480/…– user102937Nov 13, 2013 at 0:02
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Well, my eyesight's not too bad with the glasses, but double-clicking while I read has become a habit. @RobertHarvey.– TRiGNov 13, 2013 at 0:03
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2We need to avoid smutoverflo– CaffeinatedNov 13, 2013 at 0:03
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2Someone has to work at those sites. It's not the first time a web dev has used SO to do their job– randomNov 13, 2013 at 0:03
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20In any case, if this is something that really needs to be done, it needs to be done by an SE developer. They can probably run a script that does a find/replace and be done with it in 5 minutes.– user102937Nov 13, 2013 at 0:04
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1Well, I've done a few and in each case have done a couple of other tidies while I'm at it, so there's that to be said for doing it manually, @RobertHarvey. Working slowly, because it's late. Signing off now.– TRiGNov 13, 2013 at 0:13
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5@TRiGisTimothyRichardGreen The problem is that serial minor edits not only take up a lot of user time, but spam the front pages with updates that people don't need to pay attention to, contribute to posts going CW, draws extra attention to the links, etc. It really is best, if this should be cleaned up, for it to be done in a script.– ServyNov 13, 2013 at 0:27
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1I don't know if it's related, but this user is making suggested edits to change these links. Do we want to have all these questions bumped to the front page?– StijnNov 13, 2013 at 12:43
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1Hmm. I probably should have just done these myself. Working slowly, no one would have noticed. However, I generally don't see a problem with bumping. SO moves so fast anyway that it makes little difference. @Stijn.– TRiGNov 13, 2013 at 12:45
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2Bumping is rarely ever a problem on Stack Overflow, @Stijn. If the edits are useful, great!– Shog9Nov 13, 2013 at 15:11
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2 Answers
If it's easy to do, which I'm sure it is, please change the xxx-links. As Kate points out below - we may make it example.org ( example.com, example.net work also)
I think it's a good idea. But part of me is tentative, because perhaps the best way to go about this might just be volunteer effort. 1000 is reasonable if we get a few folks who'll scratch away in their spare time.
Because I'm not sure it's trivial to do this in code without at least a few unintended side-effects. There must be some instance of xxx.com that is literally intended(regex comes to mind), where it throws code off. So that said, I'll do my little part in editing out xxx's.
answered Nov 13, 2013 at 0:07
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28The only URL you should ever use as a placeholder is example.com. This is exactly why. Nobody can put a site at example.com so it is safe. If you go to it, you will see that it is reserved. See also iana.org/domains/reserved Nov 13, 2013 at 0:09
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11
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The only "inspiration" new users take to make a good question are the help center and the tour. None of them explain "use example.com" only. A lot of new users will keep using xxx.com as an example domain. Without an explicit filter to pornographic content links that tells the users to change
example-porn-link.comtoexample.com, there's not much most/most new users will do. @KateGregory Jan 9, 2017 at 20:52 -
2In the time that has passed since this question was asked, a filter has been implemented that warns anyone posting a link to xxx.com they should use example.com instead - see meta.stackexchange.com/a/207155/147247 @devRicher Jan 9, 2017 at 20:56
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Have you shown that there is an actual problem? If there is an actual rendered link with a TLD of .xxx then by all means edit it in case it ends up pointing to a real website, but other than that is there any point going through and editing out every instance of xxx that you can find? Before we start witch-hunting 'bad' URLs, keep in mind that porn sites don't necessarily use an .xxx TLD or have xxx anywhere in their URL, cleaning up these example URLs (which in many cases are simply text, not a hyperlink) won't achieve much at all.
As a developer, I didn't stop using xxx as a placeholder just because questionable websites can now use it as a TLD. It might just be the OCD and old habits dieing hard, but as a placeholder xxx is implicitly understandable (i.e. people implicitly realise it's a placeholder), and using substitutes like zzz just doesn't look right.
Edit:
this old question seems to be getting a bit of attention lately. I guess the fact that there are now 1675 usages just of the original xxx.com reference shows that its usage is quite commonplace within the developer community. I guess my original assertion is also correct - some may consider it offensive or inappropriate but there's no real problem with its usage in this context.
If you see things like:
...grant all on server server1.xxx.com to role role_sec_admin_all
(as seen in this example) and you find it inappropriate or offensive then you really need to take a hard look at yourself - maybe your head is in the wrong place or you're over analyzing it?
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9Pretty sure he was talking about xxx.com (which has been a registered domain since 1994) not whatever .xxx (which is a much more recent possibility, albeit one with some history of use)– Shog9Nov 13, 2013 at 1:03
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3@TRiGisTimothyRichardGreen I understand that (I did have a mention of
xxx.combut I took it out before submitting my last edit), but I think there is only an issue if the URL is rendered as a link - if it is not in link form (i.e. in a code block or quoted section) then there is little point in changing it. I'd be surprised if SO didn't already have automated scanning for dodgy links.– slugsterNov 13, 2013 at 2:32