Enable links in user profile fields

InSpired even has a use case for this here on the community in the “URL of your community” field.  

I’m afraid I must slightly disagree there @DannyPancratz . As someone who works in cybersecurity and helps @timcavey nuke an awful lot of spam on a regular basis, I’d say it’s best for profile links not to be clickable by default. I’ve sometimes had to help Tim deal with pretty big spam attacks where the same spammer was hitting us with lots of rapid fire spam - and even after a spammer is banned, their profile isn’t automatically wiped out. This would mean having to get a moderator to purge even more things manually.

While it does sound counter-intuitive, the current state is something I consider a safety measure. While I’m a dab hand at hunting down 99% of all spammer tactics and can rapidly flag just about anything spammers post in posts or replies, having to check for and deal with hidden URLs in profile fields as well would simply make that harder. At very most, I might be OK with it if the link couldn’t have any text over the top, but you never actually know where you’ll otherwise end up. It’d also need some form of anti-spam as well.

I can understand the idea, however it’s also just as easy to highlight the URL, right click and then click go to link via your browser (or copy/paste). But my biggest concern is that this idea would simply create another sneaky avenue for spammers to hide junk with - and I’ve caught several of those in the last few months!

If the feature only linkifies URLs that are on a whitelist though (such as within the same forum), that’s something I’d be OK with, since at least it’s locked down a bit. But I’d be hesitant about making it an open house.

@Blastoise186 thanks for sharing your thoughts. 

I’ve added this idea as an alternative idea the team might explore, as some standard social platforms are the most common use case. 

To be honest, I don’t share the same spam or security concerns that you do, but I understand how clickable links might be abused. I agree that links without text overlays are probably best, showing users the actual URL they’re clicking on. 

I learned a new trick via your comment (highlight and right click), but I’m not sure the average user is aware of that trick. So an unclickable URL still seems like a less than ideal UX from my POV. 

After having discussed this with our internal security expert, fully customisable links would indeed not be recommended to have now. The idea linked above would be a much safer solution. Please vote on that if you are interested in this feature.

We are going to close this idea for now.