Best way to send my profile URL

[+Gill & Tony]

Given that my user name contains an "&", I sometimes have problems with my profile not working correctly.  For example, clicking on the name next to this post will generate the URL 

https://www.geocaching.com/p/default.aspx?u=Gill%20&%20Tony

which takes the user to a profile for "Gill"

If I want to send someone a link to my profile, what is the best form for the URL, so they get me, not some other profile?

Thanks

Tony

[+msrubble]

This would work:

https://www.geocaching.com/profile/?id=3802419

Or:

https://coord.info/PR4HDGK

Edited January 23, 2018 by msrubble

[+msrubble]

I found the first number by going to your profile and hovering over the link "See the Forum Posts for This User." Right after profile/ is a number followed by a dash. That number is your numerical user ID used in the first URL above.

The coord.info number can be found at the foot of an email you sent another user. Or you can go to https://www.geocachingtoolbox.com/index.php?page=gcCodeIdConversion . Switch it to "ID to GC code." Enter the numerical ID above. You'll get a GC number that looks like a cache number. Change the "GC" to "PR" and, voila! You have the code to use in a coord.info URL.

[+Gill & Tony]

Thanks, msrubble.  I think I'll use the first format.  That way they can see that it is a geocaching.com URL.  The explanation made everything clear.

Cheers

Tony

[+HHL]

4 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

[...]

https://www.geocaching.com/p/default.aspx?u=Gill%20&%20Tony

[...]

That should be (Gill%20%26%20Tony)

https://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=Gill%20%26%20Tony

Hans

NB: As a GSAK user you may also use this Custom Url on one of your own caches:

Owner\Profile=http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?id=%ownerID#Content

 

Edited January 23, 2018 by HHL

[+NYPaddleCacher]

8 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

Given that my user name contains an "&", I sometimes have problems with my profile not working correctly.  For example, clicking on the name next to this post will generate the URL 

https://www.geocaching.com/p/default.aspx?u=Gill%20&%20Tony

which takes the user to a profile for "Gill"

If I want to send someone a link to my profile, what is the best form for the URL, so they get me, not some other profile?

Thanks

Tony

You encoded the space characters in your username  to % values but not the ampersand.  An ampersand is used in URLs to delimited paramaters sent to the server.  It expects something following the & character as a string=value, which this URL does not have.  It's possible that the server just throws away the invalid paramter, leaving you with 

https://www.geocaching.com/p/default.aspx?u=Gill%20

If you encode the ampersand (to a %26) it will work, for example:

https://www.geocaching.com/p/default.aspx?u=Gill%20%26%20Tony

 BTW, I have a site called urlencoder (https://www.urlencoder.org/) in my Browser bar that I frequently use to encode/decode urls.  I use it almost daily.

[+Gill & Tony]

@HHL  & @NYPaddleCacher  We all know that the special characters should be encoded, but the forum software is encoding spaces as %20 but not encoding special characters.  Obviously Groundspeak have more important things to do than fix this issue.

Anyway, thanks to msrubble I have a way to send my URL with no problems, so I'm happy that this thread is all done now.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

13 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

@HHL  & @NYPaddleCacher  We all know that the special characters should be encoded, but the forum software is encoding spaces as %20 but not encoding special characters.  Obviously Groundspeak have more important things to do than fix this issue.

Anyway, thanks to msrubble I have a way to send my URL with no problems, so I'm happy that this thread is all done now.

Ah, I didn't realize that the forum software was generating the URL you posted. That's a bug in the forum software.  It should properly encode URLs and it's not.  The forum software is a third-party forum platform, that while GS may be able to customize, might not have access to the code which contains the bug.

msrubbles solution is better in that it's using a persistent identifier rather than the user name.  You could change your username and the link will still work.