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Links are helpful, I can't be as helpful as I could if I were allowed to post more than 2 links.

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  • 1
    Can you post more than 2 URL's that are not links? Specifically, can you post a full URL in a code block? What happens if, at the start of a "new paragraph," you press Spacebar four times and enter a URL like http://www.google.com? Are you able to post more than two URL's this way? I'm asking this not to offer a workaround (it isn't one, they're not clickable), but because I've noticed the most common situation where people fall afoul of the link limit is when posting error messages containing links (which should usually be in code blocks). Feb 25, 2013 at 11:23
  • Close-voters: Please do not close this. This is requesting a feature (which was quite clear even before, but I've added the feature-request tag). This is perfectly appropriate for meta, and there's no reason to vote to close this. It's on-topic and the feature being requested is clear. If you believe this should be closed, please comment to explain why. Please remember, voting to close a discussion or feature request question on meta because you think the idea is worthless constitutes an abuse of the system. Feb 28, 2013 at 22:04
  • Aren't there several other limitations on <10 rep posters? Don't spammers include a lot of links? I don't fully understand this question.
    – user25656
    Mar 1, 2013 at 13:33
  • @vasa1 It seems like you're trying to answer this question... Mar 1, 2013 at 23:44

2 Answers 2

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Just earn those 10 rep!

For the usually short time you're below 10 reputation, we will happily edit your post to fix the links. This restriction is in place to prevent spam, clutter and all other sorts of fancy schmanzy - gaining those 10 rep is easy for a "good" user, but hard for a bot.

In fact, in your case, there seem to be many posts that don't fit our format, which might be why you lack reputation big time. I'm looking through them right now and informing you of precisely why that's the case.

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Links are not only are links restricted for <10 users because it's a bad habit to get into (we want people write long, informative posts here), the main reason from the system's point of view is blocking spam.

Most spammers want to litter a page with links to random stuff and restricting how much damage they can do is a good way to keep the system adminstration workload down.

If you have problems in legitimate situations, leave the link as text (surround it with code backticks (`)) and flag it for moderator attention. We can fix things up for you until you're able to do it yourself.

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  • Can anyone post non-linkified URL's, formatted as code? (I asked the OP but haven't yet gotten an answer; it seems your post says this does work though.) I think the most common reason people come across wanting to post >2 links is when trying to post output of error messages that contain multiple links. If you can confirm anyone may post non-linkified URL's in code blocks, I'll post an answer addressing that in detail. Feb 28, 2013 at 22:25
  • @EliahKagan: I don't think we can fool the system by posting non-linkified URL's formatting it as a code. I have seen new users not being able to properly post the contents of commands like cat /etc/apt/sources.list or sudo apt-get update. They resort to either removing http:// from all the URLs or put a space after every http://.
    – Aditya
    Mar 1, 2013 at 8:22
  • @Aditya Are you sure they're using any code formatting at all? Mangling the URLs will work but that doesn't prove giving them code formatting doesn't. In this answer, Oli seems to be saying this does work. I'm hoping for some clarification, based on direct experience, or on "authoritative sources" as the saying goes. :) Mar 1, 2013 at 9:34
  • @EliahKagan: Maybe you are right - I can't be sure enough (but I feel I have edited atleast one such post where the output was properly formatted as code but still the user had to mangle the URLs). These two examples are where it wasn't formatted as code - Ex1 and Ex2. I am going through my Suggested Edits (there are so many of them - 475 - it's a daunting task to find that one particular edit) ;-)
    – Aditya
    Mar 1, 2013 at 10:22

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