OT: shortening eBay URLSs (Was: IBM PT-2

[Hagstrom, Paul]

One further note on shortening eBay links.  A few months ago, eBay made it harder to use links to ended auctions, because it will (sometimes? often?) automatically redirect you to some active auctions that it deems to be similar.

If you add

?nordt=true&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

to the end, it will stay on the auction you asked for, even if it has ended.  That is:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/283576035281?nordt=true&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

should continue to point to this auction (for 90 days or so at least) even after the listing is closed.

I am not 100% sure that all of the parameters there are required, I only know that it works with rt, nordt, and orig_cvip there.  I think I tried removing one or more and it stopped working, but I was not systematic, since, well, I didn't really care.  This is what I use in the show notes of the Retrocomputing Roundtable episodes, since odds are good that auctions we talk about there will have ended by the time people try the links.  In the context of cctalk, this might be useful for pointing to auctions that are interesting to look at, rather than to auctions that people might want to participate in (since in that latter case, ended auctions stop being interesting).

 -Paul


> On Aug 21, 2019, at 11:45 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> A small off-topic trivial tip:
> That URL can be reduced to:
> 
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/253997593352
> 
> From 18 lines to 1, losing almost a thousand extraneous chracters.
> (The stuff between itm/ and /auction number is not needed for the URL, nor is the '?' and anything following.)
> While the description before the auction number may be useful, the appended stuff on the end isn't.
> 
> 
> On Thu, 22 Aug 2019, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> Anyone know anything about this??
>> 
>> https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vtg-1980-IBM-PT-2-Computer-Hall-Effect-Magnet-Keyboard-w-Program-Test-Manuals/253997593352?hash=item3b236fb308&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&enc=AQAEAAADIKvsXIZtBqdkfsZsMtzFbFsbX3WcW5fmB%2Fx7ZbaZTyexIhK7W9VLgW%2BiANqra5tcLfLUvucq%2FWwy3JSlehkVi0H0TnsZ9x3lnT4M%2FNK0I23zl7BNBUVztS8698RExuOgZcHXO6v7FRUK%2BTMxC2BELPLkgdRvpFWMB9BbXQW1zu7SXs5SoLJrm3aR8m2kIhrt1aHBf3njB7KD9d70jXprDh7LYyoD6BlZOSFKMSelULNCkR06EvKg4bm5Hlj2kT9gzHObAbHnS4Dy725pF6f0MSjGs0nuvyw3P701B8pbREOy%2BFwa7KynI7p%2F%2FDZSd3NLb8aiylmIQvuIxdA2jf9NKjtjNK4OtBGLPK1kCinJtpG3edC%2Bg3zcgF%2BfyYqsWzgdaR5BLc7eWvxDvDJVYrc9GagH52%2BXriCUj815vLusAYJ4MLBZEf4SumlXsAzKamOO1YHDdAY5XcZWlbJj4%2BbUDYGiVYVey5jbU4p6AR07GBD1NZ9VxtZLXu3%2BrEvbDjS062zfupJn1OsyqxjkXo4S94QVavnXzvg%2BlbUU6igkijeh8tFnsqvD9YBuGYX5BkjQbg7rxOMS9orHpRd28wEsc%2BFknJ71Lz6aCnlB4RpAZbiHprxzhMYckTqYLMAMhmYF92p5vdMYFd9gFN7jkUHKQPMgwjpZpGHrg3UeEEMrPI%2FlDEtwSC0tQBwpD4phxoid3H8rPCpQ3eavJ7UwJUNfXV5k5unTOHwY%2BxT0TTtCCfqMJXqRNMNJkokBK375vCSohk1GexkbC7vvHsB2jB6fh6sjqYTUk4JuzulLDCGrCvZaKBAW9PF8L4%2F%2BDs1N20TwMxOhigqK0TPCWMRT0CPP5lk%2BiqRoJcY0jxsLoQ%2ByEoxMik5Mf5jqeAbaFw6Sg9lXG45gGwa7JiO3kQ7W6reG3LKEMsC2kmLq8q%2BtL%2FvK9aA0gP9in9SIXNZr%2Bh40fnoMD4rS%2Bpki8If24eqaAsA75pDMYNjIgFr85VGRhiHR3g7ymKQ3%2BHET6pyCnW0pt677L6Ggah3K%2BrNu1BSYjdMm3dfFPTWvNtdFRfaBNIweNSEM&checksum=25399759335250961bc599bf4c1a8a1422d41778b250