You can remove anything starting with the question mark up to the end of a #URL in most cases. (Not all. Examples follow.)
Long URLs are truncated in #Mastodon posts, so it can be hard to see what's at the end.
You can right click (desktop) or long press (mobile) for a context menu & select "Copy URL." Then paste it into an editor & remove the tracking params from the end.
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In some cases, eg YT vids, you need certain parameters. In particular, when the link starts with youtube dot com /watch, the v parameter says which video. It has to remain after the question mark (?). But you can remove other params and the ampersands (&) that separate them.
YT also allows a t param in seconds to indicate a starting offset. I often add this manually to jump to whatever's interesting.
You can generally play around with removing params to see what's actually needed.
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Tracking params often include "id" (sid, smid, fbclid, etc). You'll also see params starting with utm_ (often from medium, eg). These should all be removed.
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There were some Fedi posts about the "utm" URL parameters going around somewhat recently.
In general, I agree it's sensible to remove them when sharing links.
But...
Sometimes, a link includes "utm_medium=activitypub".
Maybe we shouldn't remove those? I mean, if we want to promote Mastodon & the greater Fediverse, why not leave it intact?
It tells the tracking website where we came from and maybe validates their participation in the Fediverse.
Thoughts?
Two things:
- Mastodon charges a fixed amount (default 23 chars, configurable per instance) for all links. So there's no harm in lengthening a URL by leaving/adding params, fragment, etc.
- The utm params are probably less invasive than the "id" ones, which may encode who shared the link or more detailed (& opaque) info.
That's a great reminder: I've really enjoyed the way Mastodon handles links...and not penalizing us for all those obnoxiously long URLs.
Darth Hideout 🏳️🌈
Dave Mason