There’s more than one way to link to a specific post. I know, because I just realized that I’ve been doing it the wrong way. From reading back-threads, I realize I’m in the minority, but since I made this discovery, I thought I’d share it. I’ve been doing it like this (space added to allow wordwrap on small monitors):
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php ?s=&threadid=89551#post1684541
The better way to do it is the way that Arnold Winkelried does it in the FAQ, which is the way most people seem to do it. Specifically, like this:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php ?postid=1684541#post1684541
The first way links to the thread, and the second way links to the post. They both seem to work, but there’s a problem with the first method. The problem arises when the post in question is not on the first page. Then the link looks like this:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php ?s=&threadid=142126&pagenumber=2#post2560197
I’ll bet if you tried this link, it wouldn’t work. But it works for me, because I have the default number of posts per page set to 20. Because the post linked to is the 34th one in the thread, it’s on page 2 for me, but on page 1 for anyone reading the thread with the number of posts per page set to 50. There’s no telling what number someone else will have this value set to; using the method in the FAQ gets around all the confusion.
So, in short, don’t be like I was; be like Arnold.
So when I had to retype the OP, I left it out. Is there a list of attributes that the showthread.php script can take? It would be fun (and might be useful) to play around with them. I don’t even know what the “s” attribute does.