Rchoate

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Red Director (talk) 00:01, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Removing www from URLs

Hi. I noticed some of your edits are to remove www. prefixes from URLs. Please note that this can be incorrect – www.example.com is not necessarily the same website as example.com, which may be a different website, or no website at all (i.e. a mail server or VPN portal). An example of where it will definitely not get the user to the desired website is documented at Special:Permalink/895263069#formatgeneral.js_strips_www._prefix_from_URLs. Many others might redirect the user to the www.-prefixed site with an HTTP 302 response (e.g. formula1.com redirects to www.formula1.com) or with a DNS CNAME record, but it's still technically not the correct URL of the website and these redirects often get lost in the process of the operator changing addresses, web servers, or ISPs. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

@AlanM1: Thanks for reaching out. I always check the site to make sure it resolves correctly before removing the www. FWIW I'm just following the template "Infobox Company" which specifically says "Do not include the leading www. unless the URL will not resolve without it." [[1]] Thanks! Rchoate (talk) 12:29, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

@Rchoate: OK, thanks. As I said, I think that advice is mis-guided – if the canonical name of the website includes the www. prefix, that's what we should use, for maximum "future-proofing". Somehow, the idea of trimming those prefixes has crept into various places, probably for "ink-reduction". I'll explore further. (BTW, you might want to create your user page, even without significant content, so links to it (using {{Ping}} etc.) don't appear as redlinks – it makes users question whether they have typo'd your username. ) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 00:35, 13 August 2019 (UTC)