Short link stability

Question

When I use a short links such as the link to this question are there any guarantees how long the link will remain viable assuming this question is not deleted?

I ask this question because I just noticed that the short link in this comment which I presume originally pointed here is now pointed here

When questions are closed, are existing questions renumbered, thereby harming accuracy of short links referencing question numbers?

I am working on the StackMonero Twitter bot and desire stable links. Should I be using this short format or this long one? My preference is for the short link format but not at the expense of stability.

StackBitcoin appears to be using the shorter formating with an atw=1 modifier while StackEthereum appears to use the longer formatting.

Answer 1

Links are valid forever, unless a question is deleted. The link you posted from reddit, points to: /q/25/255 and it actually makes sense because the poster asks if this is related to twitter (i.e., is /q/25 related to /q/18).

So, /q/25/255 basicly means question with id 25 referred by user with id 255. The important part is the q and the 25. The part that comes after the slash can be basicly anything,/q/25/i-like-popcorn is also a valid link and will always open the question 25.

When questions are closed, are existing questions renumbered, thereby harming accuracy of short links referencing question numbers?

No, IDs wont change never.

I am working on the StackMonero Twitter bot and desire stable links. Should I be using this short format or this long one? My preference is for the short link format but not at the expense of stability.

Use http://meta.monero.stackexchange.com/q/45 - everything after that is optional, like: http://meta.monero.stackexchange.com/q/45/coming-from-twitter ;-)

By the way, I'm running one of the ethereum twitter bots, if you have any additional questions.