Technology/Gopher, (sdf.org), 01/25/2019
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You know, we here in gopher space tend to write about gopher 
space quite a bit. Contrast that with the http world, where 
the bulk of content creators hardly understand that http 
even exists at all.

We're so meta.

Anyway, I was flying through gopher space on a VF-1 tour, 
and decided to re-hash the concept of references[1] (<-that 
is a meta reference, and this is a meta-meta reference to 
the reference; I'll stop...) in phlog posts. Naturally, 
there is no standard for "linking" in gopher*. Lacking one 
authoritative style or method, several have emerged on their 
own- yes, the laws of nature even work in (gopher) space.

(*Apart from section 3.1 in the RFC, which loosely decribes 
how systems might link to one another; and, the selector+
hostname+port paradigm, which seemed to be intended for use 
in server listings and not for a document format- except 
that the "file system metaphor is extensible" per the RFC, 
so one can't really balk at it being used the way it is 
used!) 

In an informal and grossly inadequate way, I decided to 
catalog the various reference styles that are in all of 
gopher space based on a sampling of phlogs that I could find 
with little or no effort[2]. I'm aware that these styles 
likely originate from even-more-archaic-than-gopher citation 
styles[3], and from http and other conventions that we've 
all encountered in our lives. I'll leave attribution to the 
reader, I don't really want to be that pedantic here (see 
[2] again.)

Here are my findings, with actual links scrubbed, in no 
particular order:


Style 1
=======

>References
>
>   1. gopher://<redacted>
>      http://<redacted>
>   2. https://<redacted>
>   3. https://<redacted>

With inline references before the relevant text:

>[1]example reference


Style 2
=======

>[1] http://<redacted>
>[2] gopher://<redacted>
>[3] <redacted> inline note here with no link

With inline references appearing in after the relevant text:

>example reference[1].

*Note: 0 or 1 are used as a starting index[4].


Style 3
=======

>[1]: http://<redacted>

With inline references in various styles[2].


Style 4
=======

>(1) gopher://<redacted>

With inline reference after the relevant text:

>example reference (1).


Style 5
=======

>[1] <redacted>description of the link
>http://<redacted>

With inline references appearing in after the relevant text:

>example reference[1].


Style 6
=======

For content that is in fact a gophermap displaying text as 
a document, the option for actual selector+hostname+port 
links is available. In these cases, the links/selectors 
often appear inline with the body of the text, but sometimes 
as a list of referenced links at the bottom of the map. In 
these cases, Style 6 is combined variously with Styles 1-5


CONCLUSION
==========

Gopher citizens can certainly do as they please; the 
inclusion of references is a gift, no matter the format. 
Some newer clients will make an effort to interpret the 
different styles, programmatically providing easier 
navigation; this is also a gift. The protocol, of course, 
doesn't need to make any provision for this issue, as we're 
solving it ourselves.

For my part, I use Style 2, with a starting index of 1. If 
you use something else, drop me a line (tfurrows@sdf.org) 
and I'll add it to this file (redacted.)


(my own references below...)
[1] gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Reference
[2] gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Laziness
[3] gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Citation
[4] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD831.html