# Weird Earl **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 27, 2000, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-earl/38560 "2000-10-27T05:02:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![NightRabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbce88/32.png) [@NightRabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NightRabbit)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2000, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-earl/38560/1 "2000-10-27T05:02:00Z")
Hey, haven’t been online in a while… but now that I’m back, I searched somewhat fruitlessly on the site for anything concerning how to submit odd webpages to the “Weird Earl” section of the page… thanks for any information! ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2000, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-earl/38560/2 "2000-10-27T05:16:41Z")
Send all Weird Earl and Threadspotting nominations to me at [TubaDiva@aol.com](mailto:TubaDiva@aol.com). Please remember, the url is good, url and hyperlink is even better. And thanks. We appreciate all of you that send us the stuff that tickles you. your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2000, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-earl/38560/3 "2000-10-27T07:46:09Z")
OK, we’re fighting ignorance here. So that means I can ask even the dumbest questions. What is the difference between an url and a hyperlink? Yours truly, A Confused ClogBoy ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2000, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-earl/38560/4 "2000-10-27T08:15:45Z")
The difference: URL is just, well, the URL. You can C&P it into your browser. Hyperlink is something you can just click on and ::BAM!!:: you’re there. Hehehe, I think. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2000, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-earl/38560/5 "2000-10-27T08:42:41Z")
A URL is the bong, and a hyperlink is the stuff that makes you _fly-y-y-y-y-y_… (Sorry… bedtime for _El Diddly_) ---
**Author:** ![tshirts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@tshirts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tshirts)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2000, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-earl/38560/6 "2000-10-27T17:09:49Z")
Here’s the Hyperlink for a definition of URL\*\*[Hyperlink for a definition of URL](http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=url)\*\* Here’s the same URL itself \*\* [http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=url](http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=url) \*\* _ **URL ==\>** _ Uniform Resource Locator \ (URL, previously “Universal”) A standard way of specifying the location of an object, typically a web page, on the Internet. Other types of object are described below. URLs are the form of address used on the World-Wide Web. They are used in HTML documents to specify the target of a hyperlink which is often another HTML document (possibly stored on another computer). Here are some example URLs: [http://www.w3.org/default.html](http://www.w3.org/default.html) [http://www.acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif](http://www.acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif) [http://www.foldoc.org/?Uniform+Resource+Locator](http://www.foldoc.org/?Uniform+Resource+Locator) [http://www.w3.org/default.html#Introduction](http://www.w3.org/default.html#Introduction) ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/msdos/graphics/gifkit.zip ftp://spy:secret@ftp.acme.com/pub/topsecret/weapon.tgz [mailto:fred@doc.ic.ac.uk](mailto:fred@doc.ic.ac.uk) news:alt.hypertext telnet://dra.com The part before the first colon specifies the access scheme or protocol. Commonly implemented schemes include: ftp, http (World-Wide Web), gopher or WAIS. The “file” scheme should only be used to refer to a file on the same host. Other less commonly used schemes include news, telnet or mailto (e-mail). The part after the colon is interpreted according to the access scheme. In general, two slashes after the colon introduce a hostname (host:port is also valid, or for FTP user:passwd@host or user@host). The port number is usually omitted and defaults to the standard port for the scheme, e.g. port 80 for HTTP. For an HTTP or FTP URL the next part is a pathname which is usually related to the pathname of a file on the server. The file can contain any type of data but only certain types are interpreted directly by most browsers. These include HTML and images in gif or jpeg format. The file’s type is given by a MIME type in the HTTP headers returned by the server, e.g. “text/html”, “image/gif”, and is usually also indicated by its filename extension. A file whose type is not recognised directly by the browser may be passed to an external “viewer” application, e.g. a sound player. The last (optional) part of the URL may be a query string preceded by “?” or a “fragment identifier” preceded by “#”. The later indicates a particular position within the specified document. Only alphanumerics, reserved characters (:/?#"\<\>%+) used for their reserved purposes and “$”, “-”, “\_”, “.”, “&”, “+” are safe and may be transmitted unencoded. Other characters are encoded as a “%” followed by two hexadecimal digits. Space may also be encoded as “+”. Standard SGML “&\;” character entity encodings (e.g. “é”) are also accepted when URLs are embedded in HTML. The terminating semicolon may be omitted if &\ is followed by a non-letter character. The authoritative W3C URL specification. (2000-02-17) _ **hyperlink ==\>** _ \ A reference (link) from some point in one hypertext document to (some point in) another document or another place in the same document. A browser usually displays a hyperlink in some distinguishing way, e.g. in a different colour, font or style. When the user activates the link (e.g. by clicking on it with the mouse) the browser will display the target of the link. (1995-02-10) ---
**Author:** ![tshirts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@tshirts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tshirts)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2000, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-earl/38560/7 "2000-10-27T17:15:13Z")
Fudge. The vB code converted some stuff automatically those ligh blue links above were supposed to stay as plain text. I.e., Here are some example URLs: [http://www.w3.org/default.html](http://www.w3.org/default.html)   [http://www.acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif](http://www.acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif)   [http://www.foldoc.org/?Uniform+Resource+Locator](http://www.foldoc.org/?Uniform+Resource+Locator)   [http://www.w3.org/default.html#Introduction](http://www.w3.org/default.html#Introduction)   ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/msdos/graphics/gifkit.zip   ftp://spy:secret@ftp.acme.com/pub/topsecret/weapon.tgz  [mailto:fred@doc.ic.ac.uk](mailto:fred@doc.ic.ac.uk)  news:alt.hypertext  telnet://dra.com