Man, the lack of knowledge on how to properly post links on DU really gets under my skin, sorry ...

[mr_lebowski]

Respected Friends ... if you're posting a link, and there's a ? mark character it it ... then the ? mark, and everything to the right of it ... is totally extraneous, and should be removed before posting the link.

Unless, you REALLY want the outlet from which you copied the link to get $$$ for everyone following the link from DU.

Apologies to the member who just posted this, no offense, cause almost everyone does this.

Compare these two links:
https://www.nj.com/politics/2019/01/a-republican-nj-lawmaker-just-switched-parties-heres-why-shes-now-a-democrat.html?utm_campaign=njdotcom_sf&utm_content=nj_twitter_njdotcom&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

https://www.nj.com/politics/2019/01/a-republican-nj-lawmaker-just-switched-parties-heres-why-shes-now-a-democrat.html

Note that both of these links 'work' exactly the same (although your address bar shows different info when you reach the site). However, the FORMER ... makes money for Twitter when we use it here on DU. The latter ... does not.

I'm not saying Twitter gets paid instead of DU, cause in fact it doesn't look like DU makes any attempt to get paid for click-thru's from what I can tell, but there's really no need for Twitter to get paid, is there?

This also applies in cases where you post JPG/PNG/GIF files, or Youtube videos, or whatever. In those cases you get a bunch of crap characters showing up after the picture or video on DU, and it just looks ugly, and adds nothing.

Everything that's in a link, from the question mark to the right of it ... if there is a ?, is EXTRANEOUS, and should be removed IMHO, when posting links. That is information coming from (wherever you copied it from) ... trying to get paid when their links are shared.

Also, for the Love of Dog, if your link says 'Google' in it ... you're almost surely doing it way wrong.

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	Am I just totally annoyingly anal, or
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