Oftentimes, people want to be able to refer back to a Topic or individual Post on the forums for reasons such as:
- To send a link to someone in a private message or e-mail.
- To post a link in the forums that refers to an earlier post of your own, or to refer to some else's post(s).
- To save in a bookmark collection of your favorite topics.
The word link means the Web Address of a particular piece of content. The Web Address (link) appears in your Web browser's Address Line at the top of the browser window.
Every single Topic ever posted on Lottery Post — and every individual Post within those Topics — has its own, unique link, such that when you click on the link or paste it into your browser's Address Line, it will go directly to that Topic or Post.
Each unique link is called a PermaLink, which is short for "Permanent Link". It is your indication that for as long as Lottery Post exists, that link will always point to it's corresponding content, so it's perfect for saving or giving to someone.
Difference between Topics and Posts
A Topic is sometimes called a thread, because it refers to a string of messages posted on a forum. It starts with someone clicking the New Topic button in a forum, and entering the Subject and Body of the first message in the thread. People can post replies to the message by clicking the Reply button.
The entire thing — the initial message, plus all the replies — is a Topic.
A Post is one of the individual messages posted within a Topic. It could be the initial Post that started the Topic, or one of the replies. They are all Posts, and one or more Posts strung together make a Topic.
Why does all of this matter?
It matters because there is a big difference between linking to a Topic and linking to a Post.
Let's say you posted your numbers for the Wednesday drawing in the Powerball Challenge thread, and you want to send a PM to your friend with a link to the numbers you posted.
If you send a link to the Topic then when your friend clicks the link they will be brought to page 1 of the Topic, right at the top. If your Post is on page 5, your friend will be very confused because they clicked your link, but your Post with your numbers is nowhere to be found. How are they to know that it's on a different page?
Worse still, maybe they have their board settings set to show more Posts per page than you do, so even if you tell them "go to page 5", for them it actually may be page 2.
That is an example of an instance where you should send a link to the individual Post, not to the Topic.
On the other hand, if your friend has never seen the Powerball Challenge before and you want to introduce them to it, you should send a link to the Topic. Otherwise, if you sent a link to an individual Post, they would be brought to someplace in the middle of the Topic, instead of the top. Obviously, jumping into the middle of a discussion is not a great way to learn about it.
So sometimes it is better to send a Topic link to someone, especially when you're pointing out the entire discussion thread, or when first introducing a discussion thread to someone.
Topic link appearance
A Topic link starts with the familiar "https://www.lotterypost.com/" that all Lottery Post links have, followed by the word "thread" (and a slash character), and then one number between 5 and 7 digits in length.
For example: https://www.lotterypost.com/thread/177352
As you can see, each Topic has its own unique number, so the link to the Topic is basically the word "thread" plus the unique number.
Note that there is no "extension" such as .html or .aspx.
Post link appearance
A Post is a message within a Topic, so its link starts exactly like the Topic's link, with the word "thread" plus the Topic's unique number, and simply adds the unique number for the Post itself.
Therefore a Post's link has two numbers: the number for the Topic, plus the number for the Post.
Here is an example of a link to an individual Post:
https://www.lotterypost.com/thread/177352/1068197
For this example, I chose a Post within the same Topic as the example for a Topic link above, so you can see how the link is identical, up until the last number. The number added to the end of the Topic link is the unique number for the individual Post you're linking to.
As with the Topic link, there is no "extension" such as .html or .aspx on a Post link.
Obtaining a Topic link
To get the Topic link, don't just copy whatever is in the Address Line of the Web browser. (See illustration above for the location of the Address Line.)
Near the top of each page in a Topic, there is a button marked Link.
When you click the Link button, a popup window will open, showing you the Topic link.
You can copy the link displayed by pressing Ctrl+C on your keyboard (hold down the Ctrl key while pressing the letter C). Or, can click the Copy button in the popup window.
Then, close the popup window, and the next time you click Paste or press Ctrl+V, the Topic link will be inserted.
Obtaining a Post link
Every Post on the forums has a small "Post icon" shown directly above the message. The Post icon is directly to the left of the words "Posted: Yesterday, 5:49 pm". (The date is an example.)
When you click the small Post icon, a popup window will open showing you the link directly to that Post. (The Post's PermaLink.)
The popup window is animated when it opens, so that you can see it came from the Post icon.
Use exactly the same method of copying the link as explained in the Topic link — either press Ctrl+C, or click the Copy button in the popup window.
Then, close the popup window, and the next time you click Paste or press Ctrl+V, the Post link will be inserted.
NEVER paste content from another post — ALWAYS post the link instead
If you are writing a message to be posted on the forums, and you want to refer to content posted previously in another message, never copy and paste the other content into your own Post.
I'll repeat that, because it's so important: never copy and paste content from another forum post into your own Post.
Instead, post the link to that other post. (Make sure you're inserting a link to the Post, not to the Topic, for the reasons explained above.)
This rule applies to all situations — whether it is your Post or someone else's Post that you're referring to, and whether the Post is in the current Topic or another Topic.
The rule is enforced wherever it is found, which is why it is important to learn how to make the links. It's very easy to do, but it's only easy if you take the few moments necessary to learn how to do it.
Why is this rule enforced?
Mainly because it makes for a much better forum, where people respect each other's content, where readers who find the link can also find the original Post and related replies, and where the mess created by pasting HTML content into other Posts is eliminated.
It creates the type of forum where you'd want to spend your time — learning, sharing, and discussing the lottery — and that's what the Lottery Post community is all about.