# Posting a link ending in #\*$&%! parentheses **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 15, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095 "2012-11-15T16:03:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/1 "2012-11-15T16:03:07Z")
I’ve noticed that Wiki links, for instance, which end in parentheses always have the URL end-brackets exclude the closed-parentheses “)”. Like so: > **[USS Missouri (SSN-780)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Missouri_(SSN-780))** > > USS Missouri (SSN-780) is the seventh Virginia-class attack submarine and the fourth ship in the United States Navy named in honor of the U.S. state of Missouri. She was completed, and delivered, nine months early and under budget. > The contract to build Missouri was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut on 14 August 2003. Her keel was laid down on 27 September 2008. The submarine was placed in the water on 20 November 2009, and christened ... Then Wiki says there’s no such article, and you have to go back and edit your post to move the ) inside the URL, like so: > **[USS Missouri (SSN-780)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Missouri_(SSN-780))** > > USS Missouri (SSN-780) is the seventh Virginia-class attack submarine and the fourth ship in the United States Navy named in honor of the U.S. state of Missouri. She was completed, and delivered, nine months early and under budget. > The contract to build Missouri was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut on 14 August 2003. Her keel was laid down on 27 September 2008. The submarine was placed in the water on 20 November 2009, and christened ... It’s a recurring pain in the ass. It’s cumbersome to use Preview Post every time (when that option even appears, which it doesn’t always for me). Any suggestions for a fix? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/2 "2012-11-15T16:18:58Z")
I don’t understand. You mean, you copy a link to a wikipedia page and come here and either use the link button or manually create the tags and when you paste the link, the final parenthesis has jumped out of the tags? I’ve never had that happen to me. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/3 "2012-11-15T16:25:43Z")
Yes, I use CTRL-V to insert the link - usually but not always from Wiki - and the URL box excludes the closed-parenthesis ) every time. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/4 "2012-11-15T16:26:42Z")
> **[USS Missouri (SSN-780)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Missouri_(SSN-780))** > > USS Missouri (SSN-780) is the seventh Virginia-class attack submarine and the fourth ship in the United States Navy named in honor of the U.S. state of Missouri. She was completed, and delivered, nine months early and under budget. > The contract to build Missouri was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut on 14 August 2003. Her keel was laid down on 27 September 2008. The submarine was placed in the water on 20 November 2009, and christened ... Testing. Yep. Works as **Elendil’s Heir** reported. The software excludes the final paren from the HTML tag for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/5 "2012-11-15T16:27:49Z")
To be specific, automatically parsing links in text does not parse the closing parenthesis. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/6 "2012-11-15T16:28:41Z")
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS\_Missouri\_(SSN-780)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Missouri_(SSN-780)) Ok, I must not understand what you’re doing, because it seems to be working for me. ---
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/7 "2012-11-15T16:31:42Z")
Yeah, what’s happening is if you don’t include the tags but just cut and paste a url into a post, the forum software adds the tag to the front and back of the url. But I guess it doesn’t recognize that the **)** is part of the url and puts it outside the tag. That’s probably something that the folks at vBulletin would have to fix. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/8 "2012-11-15T16:33:40Z")
Well then the fix is simple. Code your links yourself or use the link button. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/9 "2012-11-15T21:51:40Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Well then the fix is simple. Code your links yourself or use the link button. Geez, what a sucker I am. All this time I’ve been using the friggin’ link button and pasting in a completely well-formed URL, when I coulda just whacked the URL directly into the text window and played parse-a-URL-roulette. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/10 "2012-11-15T21:56:22Z")
It’s not really roulette, though if you have no chance of winning, no? ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/11 "2012-11-15T21:59:16Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > I coulda just whacked the URL directly into the text window and played parse-a-URL-roulette. Otherwise known as “pasting.” Or “pressing Ctrl-V” if you want to get fancy. The fix for this is simple enough, but let’s not pretend that people are being lazy or stupid because they assume that pasting a link is going to work the exact same way that pasting a link works 99% of the rest of the time that they do it. Cripes, you guys. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/12 "2012-11-15T22:02:12Z")
You’re right, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work. I just am so used to manually coding all my links, that it never occurred to me that there are people who just paste straight into the textbox. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/13 "2012-11-15T22:47:11Z")
I never ever knew you could just post a URL directly and it would be clickable. I’ve always used the link button! The more you know! ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/14 "2012-11-16T01:00:11Z")
While we are talking about it, can we get the http:// removed from the link button popup? Most of the time I cut and paste from my address bar and it’s already included in my paste. Not to mention it generally isn’t necessary. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/posting-a-link-ending-in-parentheses/641095/15 "2012-11-16T17:31:14Z")
> [@USCDiver](#): > > While we are talking about it, can we get the http:// removed from the link button popup? Most of the time I cut and paste from my address bar and it’s already included in my paste. Not to mention it generally isn’t necessary. I doubt they’ll allow a hack that would fix it. However, it should always be highlighted, so you should be able to just paste straight in, with whatever is on your clipboard overwriting what’s already there. I’m never quite sure what the people who accidentally put two [http://s](http://s) in their URLs are doing.