You're doing very well, Class- sorry I misled you with that double slash // in my example of the within-Mudcat link - I fixed it. I hadn't tried it with NO slash at the beginning, but I did it just now and it works (if I understand some of you, that's what you did). So, all you need ot put in is

<a href=thread.cfm?threadid=XXXXX>(click here)</a>

You don't need the part that says &messages=56 - that part is just information, telling how many messages there are in a thread. Note that you can ususally highlight and copy the URL (address) right out of the "address" bar of your browser - so you never need to type URLs, and you'll never make a typing mistake in an URL if you do it that way.
Remember that you DO have to use the http:// if your link goes soutside Mudcat (also note that our Help Forum is separate, so you have to use the http to go to or from Mudcat & the Help Forum - our Help Forum is a separate entity because we hope it won't go down at the same time Mudcat does).

Note that I renamed this thread to "Practice." The JoeClones™ and I go through the practice threads every once in a while and delete practice messages. Please don't post practice messages in other threads because it's hard for us to find them and delete them when it's time to do housecleaning. Thanks.
-Joe Offer-