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It sounds to me like the tracked external linking methods only apply to questions or answers. So if you are sharing links to go toward getting the Announcer/Booster/Publicist badges, the only options apparently are sharing permalinks or using the facebook/twitter/other buttons on questions.

Why doesn't answers have the same linkability? Or even the homepage? Is this even available? If not, can it be made available?

I can't seem to find any links on the homepage or other links to do so and I don't think simply adding my userid the way it is now to it would even work.

I can see potential opportunities to share links to Stack Overflow (or any other Stack Exchange site) where I don't want to link to a specific question or answer. I want to be able to say to people I'm helping, "If you have any more programming questions, http://www.stackoverflow.com is a great resource." and have it tracked.

And why stop there? It would be very nice to have these links for the tag pages as well. So if I'm directing others in a particular discipline or programming language, I could direct them to these questions pre-filtered.

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  • There could be links like stackoverflow.com/ref/uniqueusernumber which on being used could give you the Publicist badge. For eg. 10 referrals would earn you a Bronze, fifty a Silver and 100 a Gold badge. Is it really needed, I cannot say. (Thank God for delete)
    – abel
    Commented Jan 13, 2011 at 9:05
  • I added the publicity tag.
    – abel
    Commented Jan 13, 2011 at 9:19

1 Answer 1

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In all honesty, the questions and answers are the "meat" of the site and that's what we want shared. In other words, it makes the internet better to say

I see you're having trouble with String.Format and percentages, http://example.com/questions/12345/how-to-use-string-format has a great answer for that

than

If you have any more programming questions, http://www.example.com is a great resource

I'd be more open to extending this to answers, like so

Show a short link for Answers too... not just Questions

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  • Ah, I forgot that answers didn't contain the tracking info. Add that to my request then. :)
    – Jeff Mercado
    Commented Jan 15, 2011 at 3:52
  • The particular scenarios I'm usually in are where I'm tutoring under some programming language. So typically I'd be getting many questions on varying topics. I love providing answers when I know them. When I don't (which doesn't happen much at all), I'd see myself searching here and summarize providing a link to a similar question/answer here. However that works when people have a specific question. When I'm not available or when the session is over, I'd use the line I had up above in the question. In my case, I'd make more use of the links to the general site, more than to specific q's.
    – Jeff Mercado
    Commented Jan 15, 2011 at 4:00

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