@corlin @MrGoat @stueytheround I pasted 490 characters then added a link and overflowed the counter.

@peterquirk Myth busted? Maybe. @corlin @MrGoat

@stueytheround @peterquirk @MrGoat

I just want to give accurate advice.

@stueytheround @peterquirk @corlin @MrGoat I thought there was a count to URLs but it was capped. Dunno tho.

@Beanc @stueytheround @peterquirk @MrGoat

Yes this is what I am coming to find out…
But capped at what number???

@corlin Things could be a bit toned down at the moment honestly so it may not actually be accurate with all the growing.. @Beanc @stueytheround @peterquirk

@MrGoat @corlin @Beanc @stueytheround Are you folks talking about a cap on the number of URLs in a post, or the maximum length of a URL? I was demonstrating that URLs get no special treatment, so the cap on the number of URLs or the length of a URL is simply the total character count. URLs don't get much shorter than https://www.cnn.com. (I'm assuming that FactLayer doesn't play a role in this.) I've also turned off extensions that may style a URL.

@peterquirk @MrGoat @Beanc @stueytheround

Ok there are two things going on.
1. The total regular character count + a long URL
2. Long URL's are truncated, but to what extent. And does the non-truncated bit count in total character count.

@corlin @MrGoat @Beanc @stueytheround I can't see anything in status_length_validator.rb that treats URLs specially.

@corlin @MrGoat @Beanc @stueytheround I've concluded that the myth of URLs not being included in the character count comes from how #twitter treats URLs. As a URL is a rich source of data about the user who referenced it, I believe Twitter replaces the URL with a pointer to a database of links that contains many attributes about the link. What you link to (NYtimes, Breitbart, The Onion, SandAndUseless, etc.) provides powerful discriminants for targeted advertising.

@corlin @MrGoat @Beanc @stueytheround The idea of a zero penalty of using URLs is an incentive for content creators to include them, thus providing more information about the user who created it and the people who clicked on the link. CoSo doesn't collect any of this infromation, so it has no need to treat URLs differently than other text.

@peterquirk @corlin @MrGoat @stueytheround nicely done!