There has been an epidemic lately of posting really long links, thus stretching a thread horizontally. It annoys me to have to scroll to the right to read someone's words, so I'm going to act all high and mighty and explain how to post a link.
If you're using the advanced editor, this is how you do it. First, you write some text. Then you highlight said text. After highlighting it, a chain link button will no longer be grayed out. Clink on the chain link button. Paste the URL into the appropriate box for links (it's the first one in the dialog box that appears).
If you're not using the advanced editor (everyone uses it by default), then it's easier. You click on the chain link button. You enter the url into the first dialog box. You enter descriptive text into the second dialog box. And voila! You have a short link that doesn't annoy arbilad
BTW, general advice for shrinking large urls (not necessarily just on this forum), go to www.tinyurl.com. You paste in a long url. It gives you a short one that redirects to the url you just gave it. This can be useful for sending someone a website address by email. Many email programs will cut a url into parts to fit it on separate lines. Only the first part will usually be highlighted as a url when you receive it, and you get frustrated clicking on it and getting an error that the website does not exist.