Can the recent changes to the Community interface please be rolled back?
The URL-mangler has gotten …infuriating. No matter what I try, it insists on eating the colons (and some other characters). The only way to add a working link now is to hide it as an embedded link on non-URL text.
For example, a randomly-chosen FS image: .
If I try pasting in the URL in parts in an already-entered paragraph, it bypasses the mangler but doesn't create a link: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GGYB-9DTS?view=index&personArk=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3A6J38-VQLB&action=view.
If I do the by-parts thing and then try adding an embedded link on the actually-recognizable-as-a-link text, it invokes the mangler on the displayed text: .
The link actually works on the latter, but the mangler has made it effectively impossible to select the URL: the only way to share the working version is to go to the page and copy the link from there.
Please revert this serious flaw in the software. It impedes communication.
Best Answer
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You do have the option of changing the URL to plain text:
Change it to plain text and the colons come back but the link still works:
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Answers
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Yes, please! Sharing the URL in a post or comment has become nearly impossible.
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Ugh, click creep yet again. Thanks for that tip, @Cousin Vinny.
(Turns out, my long-winded attempt at a workaround, involving pasting in the link in careful parts, only appeared to work, while I was still in the editor. The mangler is Smarter Than Me and killed the link once I posted my question.)
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi - perhaps you could or @Cousin Vinny could help out here. Like many Community members I am not at all computer savvy, so perhaps you could advise how I "convert" the screenshot view, which I'd intended to show just as a URL. I had no problem with the example above, but can't see how I can apply the advice in this case:
See example at
Oh, now I can't get that URL to stick in the format you illustrate above! I see the URL briefly (after pasting here), but before I can attempt to convert to plain text, again the URL disappears and I am left with what you see immediately above.
I'm always embarrassed at having to raise queries like this (where I'm sure there's a simple solution) but - unlike you and other users - I never have had problems (previously) with the URL getting mangled (if that's the expression!) on pasting. (I've always posted in the format: "See https://community.familysearch.org/…." and the URL has appeared just fine.)
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Oh, @Paul W, the posting software has become so infuriatingly smarter-than-thou, I hardly know where to start.
I'm wondering if it has extra-special-goodness rules for Community links? Ayup. Can't paste them as links; it converts them willy-nilly into embedded quotes, and the only option offered is to trash them. I wish I could trash the ::redactedly:: overhelpful software instead.
I'm running out of suitable adjectives for how a newly-discovered behavior is making me feel: what my post looks like in the editor has no relationship to how it will appear once I click "Post" or "Save". It silently and uncontrollably-by-me makes various smarter-than-thou edits to my text, making some paragraphs into bullet points, mangling any attempt at putting in a simple short line of dashes as a separator between thoughts/topics, and destroying any attempt at a simple, unindented set of numbered paragraphs. And when I click "Edit" to try to fix these problems, they're not there. How can I delete a "bullet point" format when the paragraph in question doesn't have that format when I edit?
So, renewing my plea at the beginning of this thread: can these changes PLEASE be reverted? I would like to be able to enter text as I want it to appear, not the way some algorithm decides it should appear. Is that really so much to ask?
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At the risk of being a Pollyanna, there is an Announcement (from 7 Dec 2023) with an addendum (from 31 Jan 2024): (bold emphasis mine)
Over the coming months, you might notice various adjustments. However,
please refrain from fixating on these alterations as they remain subject
to further refinement.I hope that means the current state of affairs is not the final version, because I find it rather frustrating and pretty much unusable.
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BTW @Áine Ní Donnghaile, @Julia Szent-Györgyi (or anybody!), is there currently a way of posting the link provided in URL form? Very briefly it appeared in a box, whereby one can convert to plain text, but almost immediately the narrow, rectangular box turned into what you see above.
Update: I finally found an example of what I am referring to! Why are some copied (URL) links appearing in the above form, but others like this?
(From PABullfinch comments at "How do I change my family tree?" thread.)
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Hi Paul W - don't seem to be able to tag you today.
With the latest changes to URL formatting, there are some new bells and whistles. If there are instructions somewhere, I haven't seen them. Trial and error.
So when I try to post a URL, and I'll use the Tennessee census from this thread as an example - https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DC3S-9YC I see this:
If I select that first option - what looks most like an em dash - then it will post normally - just as a URL.
Hope that helps.
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@Paul W, as I wrote in a comment on my "please roll back" thread, the mangler appears to have extra-special-goodness in mind for Community thread links: it is impossible to paste them in without the bot adding the full-quote-preview.
The only workaround I've come up with is to paste the link into a text editor, put a space in the URL, and then use the hidden/background link-insertion on one of the sections: https:// community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/159955/can-the-recent-changes-to-the-community-interface-please-be-rolled-back#latest.
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Thank you for your responses. I see I already made a similar comment at the thread you have referenced above, Julia. Unfortunately, it appears @Cousin Vinny (no, I suddenly can't tag anyone, either) appears to be the only one helping us out here.
I guess as long as other Community members are not seeing this as a problem it just won't be seen as a priority issue by "FamilySearch".
Now I have the URL for the main discussion (raised by Julia) I will make any further comment there - but taking into account Stephanie's "Announcement" about the ongoing modifications to "Community".
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A slightly belated Thank You for the rollback earlier this week of the extra-overhelpful URL mangler. The return of the white input box is also surprisingly reassuring. (The gray always felt vaguely wrong.)
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Today, Monday, 15 April, tagging is once again nearly impossible as is posting a URL in a comment.
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Yup, I spoke too soon: the comment box is gray again, images are replaced with a pink box saying "permission problem", and the super-mangler is busily chewing things up.
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And guess what about tagging? I can tag @Áine Ní Donnghaile but I have to (again) paste the A-acute in.
I presume there is a perfectly good explanation from FamilySearch's Change Management team for all this?
(Plus the software seemed to lose the draft for this comment)
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@Adrian Bruce1 I am able to tag you now, but it took multiple tries. There is definitely something amiss.
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Hmm - then I probably wasn't imagining the issues I had. I thought it was just because I was messing up with the A acute but I also had difficulties that seemed beyond your name. I couldn't tag Julia either at that point, but assumed my own frustration was getting the better of me.
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Based on Stephanie's revised post Ability to upload images is broken, again, the issue seems to lie with the vendor. Well, I'm guessing that the various Community problems stem from the same root cause.
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