ChatGPT tells me about Gopher selectors Tue, 11 Nov 2025 07:45:02 +0100 +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ Trying to separate the conflicting results I got from search engines, I thought why not try chatgpt. At first it gave me a load of rubbish, but it finally gave me bad results too lol. Anyway, below is a manually cleaned up list that I believe no gopher server or client uses entirely. As such it's gopher utopia. Selectors were used because Gopher didn't use mime[1] types, which originated in the Andrew system at Carnegie Mellon, and were later adopted by email clients and http browsers. With over 2500 mime types available now, the selector system is glaringly insufficient. Today, Gopher is neither one thing or the other, using or not using selectors that are mostly ignored by clients anyway who often fall back to mime. Clients such as Chawan or Lynx that also display html already use mime types. In order to remain compatible with older servers, clients need to acknowledge selectors. A Gopher server that defers to mime types could radically shorten this list, but older clients would be lost. Gopher is prisoner of it's past. Due to the lack of consensus over selectors, and the fact that each client does what it pleases, it's pretty useless and even misleading to display selector acronyms before each link like Lynx does. Displaying arrows etc. in front of the line is overkill too, the link is already highlighted. My Chawan config gets rid of them: [2],[3]. Perhaps it just requires a small tweak of current servers to use the 'M' selector instead, the selectors 0,1,3,7,M and url selectors would be sufficient. Used with multi protocol clients, it could insure Gopher's future as the bedrock of the smolnet. (Old man shouts at the sky) Official (RFC 1436, March 1993) 0 Text file Display as plain text 1 Directory (menu) Display as a list of items 2 CSO (PH) phonebook server Open as a query interface 3 Error message Display error text 4 BinHexed Macintosh file Download 5 DOS binary archive (e.g., ZIP) Download 6 UUEncoded file Download 7 Search server Prompt for input, then query 8 Telnet session a text-based telnet session 9 Binary file Download + Redundant server T TN3270 session a text-based tn3270 session g GIF image Download and display image I Generic image Download and display image Gopher+ and Common Unofficial Extensions h HTML file Open using web browser i Informational message (not a link) Display only s Sound file Download/play audio ; Video file Download/play video d Document (e.g., Word, PDF) Download or display M MIME type message Display or handle via MIME : Bitmap image Used by some servers c Calendar/event file Nonstandard e Extended (Gopher+) file Used in some Gopher+ menus p PNG image Common in modern Gopher servers r RSS or Atom feed Used by newer servers S Sound (alternate to s) Used interchangeably X XML document Some Gopher+ servers w Web link (HTTP/HTTPS) “Gopher link to the Web” Z Compressed file (e.g., gzip) For archives _ Generic unknown file Placeholder = Alternate text (used by Gopher+) For metadata ~ Home directory often used for user-specific files + Gopher+ enhanced version of a standard item * Wildcard often used in searches or other advanced uses +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ [1] gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/MIME [2] gopher://spike.nagatha.fr:70/0/code/chawan_config.toml [3] gopher://spike.nagatha.fr:70/M/images/chawan-gopher-css-4.png ␌