# Design choice behind /t, /c, and /users

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [January 9, 2017, 8:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434 "2017-01-09T20:43:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![fishb6nes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/fishb6nes/32/121291_2.png) [@fishb6nes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fishb6nes)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2017, 8:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/1 "2017-01-09T20:43:56Z")

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What was the design choice behind going with abbreviated URIs for topics (/t), and categories (/c), but using the full form for accessing user pages (/users)?

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### Author: ![zogstrip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/zogstrip/32/512781_2.png) [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/2 "2017-01-09T20:46:38Z")

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Because /users is a page on its own whereas /t and /c aren’t 😉

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### Author: ![fishb6nes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/fishb6nes/32/121291_2.png) [@fishb6nes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fishb6nes)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/3 "2017-01-09T20:48:38Z")

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The average end user isn’t aware of that though, just seems inconsistent.

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### Author: ![mpalmer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mpalmer/32/45740_2.png) [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/4 "2017-01-09T21:36:11Z")

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The average end user isn’t looking at the location bar.

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/5 "2017-01-09T21:36:34Z")

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Shorter URLs, less desire to “localize” URLs since they are not full words.

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### Author: ![tobiaseigen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/tobiaseigen/32/539204_2.png) [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/6 "2017-01-09T21:36:57Z")

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Probably also because users don’t create super long URLs while topics do. I’m glad to have a convention that keeps these a bit shorter.

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### Author: ![sashailinsky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sashailinsky/32/56795_2.png) [@sashailinsky](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sashailinsky)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/7 "2017-01-20T20:53:21Z")

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We need /u/ for /users/ 🙂

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/8 "2017-01-23T15:24:07Z")

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Agree, but we should open a specific topic to track this

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/9 "2019-07-31T15:44:28Z")

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This is now the case and implemented as `/u/`

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### Author: ![justin.noom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/justin.noom/32/147907_2.png) [@justin.noom](https://meta.discourse.org/u/justin.noom)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2019, 4:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/design-choice-behind-t-c-and-users/55434/10 "2019-07-31T16:28:22Z")

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> [@mpalmer](#):
>
> The average end user isn’t looking at the location bar.

I can confidently say that _none_ of my users are paying attention to that, lol.