Helpful links getting filtered

[tonjohn]

If I try to link to a Steam Support FAQ, the link gets broken due this site filtering "? ref =" (minus spaces)

This makes it hard to help people.

 

[jctusmc03]

H is filtering many links lately, it's kind of unfortunate. I've seen people griping about it in a few threads lately.

 

[Oldie]

I'm 99% sure the intention with that particular block is to stop spammers, sadly some other links are occasionally affected.

 

[mikeblas]

When will you be sure about the cause? ETA for a fix?

 

[Oldie]

Mike, an admin will have to comment on whether or not it will be "fixed." The question really comes down to which provides the larger benefit, filtering a lot of spam links, or allowing the spam so people can link to a small number of legit affected websites. Just to be clear I'm sure there's no intention of blocking the steam faq's, they just happen to share a similar character string as a decent number of referral spam links that have been posted on the forum.

 

[mikeblas]

Seems like one can be blocked without without blocking the other; contains "+++++++" and not "steampowered.com/" and so on.

Problem is there's no sensible workaround since so many other links are blocked. tinnyurl, for instance. It's evident that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater.

 

[Vashypooh]

Seems like their would be a whitelist feature along with a blacklist feature that maybe could be used to do such, but really not too familiar with Vbulletin, use IPB way more.

 

[FrgMstr]

Feel free not to use our resources.