You posted to someone: FWIW, all pages on the forum now stand alone, meaning you can copy the URL at the top of the page and use it as a link.

This cannot be said of the message area, certainly not of the admin area, and perhaps not of other areas/pages. For example, posting a link using the url for reading all new messages is a VERY bad idea. Why? Because what the user sees when clicking such a link in a message is not what the person actually pasting the link into a message is seeing. The results of read all new are different for every user on every visit.

The ONLY message link that can be safely used in messages is of the same format as the hot discussions links on the home page. It is a read thread link.