This raises another important question: how permanent are links to Mudcat items in general?

The elves reserve the right to move messages between threads, split up or merge threads etc. From this point of view, "permalinks" to individual posts would be preferable to thread-IDs: each post gets an ID, by which it can be linked without mentioning the thread. Instead of decimal numbers, arbitrary characters ("36-based") can be used, so that the IDs don't get too long. Links would then look like "https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?postid=1s2o3m4e5t6h7i8n9g" and would be distributed by the script. If a link to an entire thread is desired, it can be considered represented by its first post ("OP") – at the user's risk.

The BS section has its name from the fact that permanence is not desired. The music section, however, is often referred to by researchers, even decades after the posting took place.

Question to the elves: is the existing ID of a post, such as "4223333", actually unique Mudcat-wide? If so, it can be used for the above threadless mechanism as well.