When a link points to a gopher file, isn't the information about what type of
data being pointed to already provided in the URL?
e.g. gopher://ecn.purdue.edu/I9/Some_nifty_graphic
Is known to be a "gopher-image" because of the I9.
I would think it wouldn't be too hard for the client to display a small
bitmap instead of a bullet when it sees something like this in the link. As
soon as you move out of gopher provided information, the problem becomes very
murky, and an optional parameter like the one you suggest would probably be
just about the only way to do it without a lot of headaches.
Chris Davis -- Purdue University ECN