I wrote a script to fix the busted comment links on stories (where clicking the link takes you back to the story instead of the BBS).
I’m sure there’s a better way to do this, but it works for me.
You will need to install the Tampermonkey browser extension. Get that here: https://www.tampermonkey.net/
When that’s installed, open the settings for it and create a new script. Paste this in:
// ==UserScript==
// @name boingboing bbs link fixer
// @namespace http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version 0.1
// @description Fix boingboing bbs links
// @author Me
// @match https://boingboing.net/*
// @grant none
// ==/UserScript==
var links;
var link;
var linkUrl;
var newUrl;
var pos;
links = document.evaluate(
"//a[@class='bbs']",
document,
null,
XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,
null);
for(var j=0; j<links.snapshotLength; j++)
{
link = links.snapshotItem(j);
// console.log ("link ", link);
linkUrl = link.href;
// console.log ("URL ", linkUrl);
if (linkUrl.indexOf("//bbs.") < 0) // Is this a bbs link?
{
// https://boingboing.net/2023/05/01/suspect-who-killed-5-people-in-texas-mass-shooting-has-vanished-with-zero-leads.html
// not a bbs link, fix it.
newUrl = "https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/";
// point to domain.
pos = linkUrl.indexOf("boingboing.net/");
if (pos < 0) {
continue;
}
// skip past it.
pos += 15;
// skip past three /s
pos = linkUrl.indexOf("/", pos);
if (pos < 0) {
continue;
}
pos++;
pos = linkUrl.indexOf("/", pos);
if (pos < 0) {
continue;
}
pos++;
pos = linkUrl.indexOf("/", pos);
if (pos < 0) {
continue;
}
pos++;
// should now be pointing past the date.
newUrl = newUrl + linkUrl.substring(pos);
if (newUrl.endsWith(".html"))
{
// strip .html off the end
newUrl = newUrl.substring(0, newUrl.length-5);
}
console.log ("new URL ", newUrl);
link.href = newUrl;
}
}
