For example, !lemmy starts with an !, but why not start with a # symbol?

    • gylotip@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      A hashtag fits more for communities than an exclamation mark.

      • KNova@links.dartboard.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I think it has more to do with the federated nature of the platform. If you are ingesting content from Mastodon for example, # is a hashtag in a post, and you can tag someone with their username with the @ symbol.

        Edit: you can tag people here with @ too - such as @knova@knova@dartboard.social

        So that leaves a new symbol for community linking

        • Datsourdo@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m on kbin, and to sub to a community on a lemmy instance, I have to replace the ! with a @, because that’s the actual underlying name, it seems. It’s a bit confusing.

        • gylotip@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          A hashtag for community seems much better than an exclamation mark.

            • gylotip@lemmy.mlOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              But you didn’t say why Lemmy does not use hashtags for communities.

              • KNova@links.dartboard.social
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                8
                ·
                1 year ago

                I explained that hashtags use the pound symbol already, and usernames use the @ symbol. Communities needed their own symbol.

                • gylotip@lemmy.mlOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Okay, but how does a hashtag work? Can you give an example of a hashtagged word where Lemmy uses a hashtag?

              • Knighthawk 0811@lemmy.one
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                6
                ·
                1 year ago

                probably because a hashtag is already a thing that means something else in other apps. making hashtag mean a community here would give it 2 meaning depending on the app and that’s not user friendly cause people will make mistakes if they move between apps.

                therefore a new character was chosen for communities to avoid such confusion