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A high-rep user recently edited one of my answers to replace the permalink I used to reference another answer to the same question (obtained from the "share" link under the answer) with a "long form" link to the same answer.

Is there some way to generate this long-form link or does it have to be done by hand? I see this subject has been discussed in Provide an easily discoverable way to get the full URL to an answer

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  • The short link redirects you to the longer link. Once you go to the short link, you can just copy the URL for the long one.. – Josh Crozier Dec 12 '13 at 19:45
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    I always open the URL and copy the redirected URL, but that is a very tedious and time-wasting method. – animuson♦ Dec 12 '13 at 19:45
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    Why is the long link preferable? I understand tinyURL being bad but stackoverflow will be around for as long as stackoverflow is around – Richard Tingle Dec 12 '13 at 19:47
  • @RichardTingle I was curious about the apparent preference for the long link, at least in the case of referring to another answer to the same question, but was trying to avoid a two-part question here. – Peter Alfvin Dec 12 '13 at 19:50
  • @JoshC But in the case of referring to another answer to the same question, doesn't the inclusion of the question text seem at best awkward or at worst misleading (i.e. suggesting it's some other question)? – Peter Alfvin Dec 12 '13 at 19:52
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    @RichardTingle The long URL gives a slug which gives a viewer some indication of what the question might be about (when hovering the link), especially when users use a bare URL or some undescriptive title like "this question" for their link. The short URL just gives you some meaningless numbers. In a case where the URL's title is the question title itself, it's not all that useful. – animuson♦ Dec 12 '13 at 19:56
  • Given that you're asking if a method exists, and Provide an easily discoverable way to get the full URL to an answer is a standing feature request to create a method, thus answering you in the negative, I think this can be dupe-closed to that question. (One answer there also seems to have a user script for the functionality.) – jscs Dec 12 '13 at 20:32
  • Also, @Richard, when different people use the same long URL, then browsers can show the link as "visited" if applicable. (Not on Meta, where the CSS doesn't indicate such difference. Too bad.) But when different people all use the short URL, which includes their user id, then those are different URLs for a browser. – Arjan Dec 12 '13 at 20:34
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    Brings the question why the share button provides the short link at all in that case? – Richard Tingle Dec 12 '13 at 20:37
  • @RichardTingle Because the short URL has your user ID on it. So if you share the URL outside the Stack Exchange network, you get credit for visitors coming to the question. But then the visitors don't know what the heck they're clicking on. :/ – animuson♦ Dec 12 '13 at 20:48
  • The short URL includes your userid at the end, which powers the Publicist, Booster, and Announcer badges. – Adam Lear♦ Dec 12 '13 at 20:48
  • I find the short form handy for comments, @RichardTingle (and I usually remove the user ID), because of the character limit. – jscs Dec 12 '13 at 20:48
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    @animuson You could always format your URLs with a title, etc. instead of just pasting links places. ;) – Adam Lear♦ Dec 12 '13 at 20:48
  • But even then, @Anna, browsers would see a new URL and won't be able to show it as "visited". – Arjan Dec 12 '13 at 20:51
  • @JoshCaswell I agree with the dupe-close, although FWIW, I never know if I can trust the status of old feature requests that are still "standing". Also, had I read the full set of answers to that question, I probably wouldn't have posted this, so mea culpa. – Peter Alfvin Dec 12 '13 at 20:53

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