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

  • KNova@links.dartboard.social
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    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
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      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
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      1 year ago

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

        • gylotip@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

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

          • KNova@links.dartboard.social
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            1 year ago

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

          • Knighthawk 0811@lemmy.one
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            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