On 7 Sep 2005 00:59:12 GMT, Bruce Barnett
wrote:

(Doug Miller) writes:

Posting something like "eBay item# 8215485251" would have gotten the point
across well enough, I think. I imagine that most folks would figure out how to
search eBay for the item number.

But it does take longer to find it.



the biggest disadvantage to tinyurl and such is that the links they
generate do eventually expire, while the usenet post containing it
doesn't. so the person who comes along in the sometime future can't
know what it was that was being linked to.

but in the case of ebay auctions, heck, they expire too. so it 'aint
no big deal to tinyurl a link to an ebay auction.

but in general, anything that will be useful to someone else later
should prolly not be tinyurled.

and for most newsreaders, you can beat wordwrap by putting the link
inside of a pair of . sort of like
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=2758888&linkID=2475161