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

      • KNova
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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
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          21 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.

              • KNova
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                71 year ago

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

                • @gylotip@lemmy.mlOP
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                  11 year ago

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

                  • KNova
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                    21 year ago

                    #hashtags don’t automatically work on Lemmy, but if I cross post this comment to another federated service (mastodon etc.) the hashtags should work there. #lemmy @knova@knova@dartboard.social

              • Knighthawk 0811
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                71 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