Do Not Link: Farley's Advice

[Aneris]

I'm convinced when Tim Farley wrote “linking to a piece of pseudoscience or misinformation” that he meant all kinds of sites we discuss here. His advice is to route links via donotlink, which is as simple as putting the donotlink domain before the normal link.

To make it even simpler, you don’t even have to visit the website at all! You can simply insert /www.donotlink.com/ in front of the target URL, and use it like you normally do. So instead of linking to:

• http://naturalnews.com

Edit the URL so it looks like this:

• http://donotlink.com/naturalnews.com

I highly recommend all skeptics adopt this as standard practice. Further, please point out this article to other skeptics who you observe linking directly to misinformation on social media.

Provided you think it's a good idea, can you add somewhere that all links on the board are automatically go via donotlink?

[AnonymousCowherd]

I'm convinced when Tim Farley wrote “linking to a piece of pseudoscience or misinformation” that he meant all kinds of sites we discuss here. His advice is to route links via donotlink, which is as simple as putting the donotlink domain before the normal link.

To make it even simpler, you don’t even have to visit the website at all! You can simply insert /www.donotlink.com/ in front of the target URL, and use it like you normally do. So instead of linking to:

• http://naturalnews.com

Edit the URL so it looks like this:

• http://donotlink.com/naturalnews.com

I highly recommend all skeptics adopt this as standard practice. Further, please point out this article to other skeptics who you observe linking directly to misinformation on social media.

Provided you think it's a good idea, can you add somewhere that all links on the board are automatically go via donotlink?

Not sure if anyone has seen this Aneris, but hey, you've got the keys, drive on the wild side!

[Skep tickle]

I don't know that he meant sites we most commonly link here, since he focuses on pseudoscience & woo, but it's a good point that links boost the apparent importance of the site. Where it seems important not to add to that, the "do not link" approach looks really useful.

Is there a downside? (Other than that there may be sites you DO want to boost the importance of...like Farley's site!)