I see more and more often that people post bit.ly links here. Please don't. First and foremost — it hides the real URL, so I don't know where I am sent to. Second: you force me to use a service that collects, aggregates and shares data on who clicks what when, which I consider very bad practice. Finally, no matter how long your URL is, it only counts as 23 characters in your post, so no need to "shorten" links [1]

TL;DR post real links and don't spy on me. #kthxbai

[1] https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/posting/#:~:text=All%20links%20are%20counted%20as,link%20shortener%20to%20save%20characters.

Posting to your profile - Mastodon documentation

Sharing your thoughts has never been more convenient.

@jwildeboer I still need to get the motivation to make shd.li a public service .oO( obviously, this should be read as "sh-dee-li, i.e., shadily, and nothing... else... which might sound similar...)

Core idea:
- no direct-redirect, i.e., see URL first, click to actually visit
- No tracking/external cloud resources
- Bring your own domain
- Full data export for selfhosting (of your own domain)

Example: https://shd.li/c8E5roP58

Oh, and... btw; The software:
https://git.as59645.net/AS59645/shrtnr

SHRTNR

@tfiebig I wish public URL shorter are like this where they tell you which you heading so I know I ain't going to get prank/shock video on my screen. Really interesting that!

One thing I will suggest is have some sort of meta description and title that also well what website is it heading to when I am seeing the link on Fedi.

@jwildeboer

@matty @jwildeboer Hm... yeah. Grabbing the preview and delivering it when the url is pasted might be a thing. Adding additional input for users would be a bit bloaty i think. 🤔

And in general... need the bump in motivation to put it live/open registration.