Sorry if this has been asked before. What is the purpose for stopping a URL from being posted if it misses a www or if it's a redirect? Almost all URLs work fine in all browsers without a www or forward slash at the end. Sometimes, I want to post a quick reply and I need to mention this or that URL, but because of the auto URL correct it becomes like a pain in the butt.
Mostly to stop malicious activity like people posting affiliate links or cookie stuffing by posting redirecting images...
So a URL then is not necessarily going through a DP redirect function? Like Twitter or G+, don't they eliminate a possibility of cookie stuffing by redirecting links through their own redirects (plus.url.com/blah-blah-blah or t.com/blah-blah-blah) or does it serve a completely different purpose? I hear what you're saying, but if you ask a few DP members, they will probably concur that that auto URL correct pop up is painful to deal with at times.
Redirects were a huge problem on the old forum. I've had issues posting so I know how users are affected but it really does help keep the forum clean.
Yeah, there are certainly a few domains that could be trusted, but we didn't build a white-list system for it. Honestly, it's just easier all around to have people post the *actual* URLs. 95% for spam prevention reasons... as @sarahk mentioned, it was such a huge problem before that we had to build the system. Not like we built it to try and figure out a way to annoy people.
But isn't it kind of a cut-and-dry approach? Why not allow all links that have a http://digitalpoint.com (.org .net .co, etc.) structure to be posted, no matter what, and then stop everything else. If you want to stop redirects or affiliate links - fine, but when a normal link is stopped because it misses the www or the slash forward at the end, it becomes kind of annoying. We've "trained" our markdown to do things that other markdowns can't do. All it takes is just a bit more time and commitment.
Yeah... just automatically replacing the posted URL with the final destination is something I plan on looking into when I have the time. That would (hopefully) solve the inconvenience factor it currently brings.