@ syntax as a synonym for user name=

[deborah]

Title:
@ syntax as a synonym for user name=

Area:
Entries

Summary:
In an entry, if someone types "@[string]" (more specifically, something like "(^|\s)@[legal characters in usernames]*\b), check to see if that's a username at posting time. If so, translate it internally to <user name="> syntax.

Description:
This would allow users to choose the now-common shorthand of '@username' to indicate users on the local system. This would be taking a design pattern that has become mainstream over the last several years, which users are used due from Tumblr, Slack, Twitter, etc. I'm not suggesting auto complete; there are too many more important pending changes to the post system. I'm also not suggesting a variant for the other-sites functionality of the user element; no @username@twitter, or something. Just a very straightforward replacement. But this would be a nice shorthand that users have become accustomed to.

Poll #20845 @ syntax as a synonym for user name=

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 120

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
56 (46.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
39 (32.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
14 (11.7%)

(I have no opinion)
10 (8.3%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (0.8%)

Comments

[mark]

We already do this in the Markdown format but there has historically been pushback against doing it everywhere else. I'm all for it though and think we should do it.

We even had a shorthand for doing other site stuff, like linking to a Twitter account by doing: @foo.twitter -- since a period isn't a valid username character here.

[matgb]

@foo.twitter

Oh, I LIKE that a lot. In the past I was vaguely opposed because I didn't see the point, but I spend so much time on other sites that do it I try to do it here now

On Mastodon it's @user@instance.tld which I still find clunky but it does at least work

[deborah]

I voted "with changes" on my own suggestion because I like the other-site syntax you suggest here.

[jenett]

I also like this alternative.

[watersword]

Nth-ing the syntax suggestion as a "with changes".

[jjhunter]

...I was just about to comment to suggest also shorthand for usernames at other sites - yes please to implementing that! (Though now I’m curious if that are any DW usernames with ‘.’ in the middle...)

I assume using the html syntax would still remain an option?

[fandomonymous]

I'm fine with mark's suggestion, but I prefer the Mastodon convention @foo@site.tld since it looks so close to email and is already in use elsewhere. Maybe the .tld piece won't be necessary for common domains or have shortcuts available (@foo@ij, @foo@ao3)?

[montuos]

+1; I'm becoming familiar with this format from diaspora*.

And I too would love to have autocomplete for it, as long as those who need it off can turn it off. Ditto mention notifications.

[solarbird]

Would it be interesting to also do this in tags, with it triggering an inbox notification of the tagged user when done?

+1 with changes

[runpunkrun]

How about receiving a notification (through email or inbox) that you've been mentioned/tagged? That's also something people are used to from Twitter/Tumblr/etc.

Re: +1 with changes

[alisanne]

+1
I agree with this. It would be nice to be able to know when you're mentioned in someone's post.

[ursamajor]

I like the general shape of the changes to this feature as suggested by mark, though I think I'm leaning mildly more towards the mastodon-style implementation matgb mentioned of @user@instance.tld, mostly because my sense is that more places let you have "." in usernames than "@". (Instagram, for example, definitely permits periods in proper usernames; I would be concerned about how to properly link to some usernames there using the proposed shorthand.)

[mark]

The periods-in-other-sites-usernames is a great point. I suppose I could get used to @zorkian@twitter as a thing.

[arethinn]

I like the idea, but I think some solution does need to be figured out for the off-site references, otherwise you have a split syntax situation rather than one form working for all cases.

[sporky_rat]

I like @username@place, honestly.

[vicki_rae]

I like this. I'm fine with any of the changes other have suggested.

[sharpiefan]

@username@place would be cool, rather than the HTML - or even as well as the HTML version. I still type lj user= rather than username= and I've been here longer than I was ever on LJ; some habits die hard so an addition rather than a replacement format would probably be best, for those of use who are used to DW as-is, with the additional for those who are coming to DW from Tumblr or wherever.

[elendraug]

Haha, I'm still typing "lj user=" out of force of habit, too.

Nitpick

[pauamma]

In (^|\s)@[legal characters in usernames]*\b, I think you mean "+" instead of "*".

[tephra]

I think the @user@site syntax would be fine. It would be really nice if @user (which would of course be a DW user) also generated a notification. People would have to have a setting to turn off being notified that they've been @ mentioned (aka pinged, aka "ear burned").

[papersarkany]

I like the @user@place style, but will take whatever variation works in the code.

[zeborah]

This is more of a question than a comment :-) but would such a change be retrospective? Ie would it be implemented on the display side, so that an old entry containing @example (referring to a Twitter user because at the time the author knew the @ was non-functional) would now be displayed with a link to the Dreamwidth account? Or would it be implemented on the posting side, so old entries are unaffected but any new entries with that syntax would get the link inserted upon hitting "post"?

That aside, I like something along the @example for Dreamwidth and @example@external for external sites.

An excellent point re: retrospection

[jesse_the_k]

...because I've seen lots of casual use of "@username" to mean "utterances from 'username' anywhere else online."

I'm chiming in with @username@site.tld.

I want this shortcut to recognize common sites to the same degree that DW *now* recognizes <user name=foo site=bar> for "twitter", "tumblr", "lj" and so forth.

Because the TLD space has opened up to "social" "shop" and "sofa", DW should default to requiring it. DW can offer the shortcuts as a nifty thing on top.

[fyreharper]

I don’t have a strong opinion about implementing this vs not, but if we’re also going to generate notifications-of-mention, there absolutely must be a way to turn that off, including preemptively (which I expect to be a much more complicated user-design process than just implementing this change would be).

[kore]

Seconded.

[jducoeur]

I'm broadly in favor, but with an edge-case caveat. I use Markdown almost exclusively these days, and use the @name convention there. But the one time I *cannot* use Markdown is because of this feature: when I'm linking to a Medium URL (which often has an @ *in the URL*), this causes the link to break.

So there needs to be some sort of way to escape out of this -- to signal, "no, this @ isn't trying to link to a user".

[elf]

Would it work if it only parsed the names if it were [space]@name? In that case, an @ in the middle of a phrase - like an email address - wouldn't auto-link to an account name.

I like the convenience of @name@place; it'd especially be useful for the wave of Tumblr refugees.

[kore]

Dreamwidth already has the username tag to link to other sites: https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=87 It supports a lot of different forms. I disagree that @username has become a general convention. It's strongly associated with Twitter accounts, and with "@-ing" a user on Tumblr, which means they get notified of mentions whether they want to or not. If I see "@" I'm going to think Twitter.

This also seems like a back door to "let's have notifications of @ mentions," which I am personally really really not for.

[silveradept]

I am fine with @ staying in Markdown-land rather than becoming a site-wide convention, or with it jumping in to general site-wide use.

If @ becomes more widely acceptable, or even becomes more used in the Markdown department, I'm leaning toward an implementation that allows for a user name and a domain that goes with it, because I'm trying to think of how it might be possible, for example, to gather the right user masthead for a Mastodon or other federated instance to indicate that it's Mastodon-as a service and also generate a correct link to the right user on that instance, since MAstodon doesn't have a central server idea like Twitter, tumblr, or Dreamwidth. If it's technically feasible to pull off this particular bit of wizardry, then @ syntax seems to have a possibility for doing all the things I would expect it to be used for.

don't do other sites, and don't convert pasted or past instances

[kindnesstheorist]

I don't like any of the other-site syntax options, because every option I can think of is ambiguous. Some sites allow dots/periods/at signs/anything in their usernames, to which the only correct solution is escaping, which ime end users hate. I think it should be just Dreamwidth; the other sites can have their specialized escaping and formatting done by the rich editor.

Things that are pasted in should not have their ats converted, which fixes most links. (Users who both link to Medium/etc and have to retype their URLs by hand can go to settings for a fix; that is an unusual use case.) Posts made in the past should not automatically be converted. No notification should be made to the user who was linked to, regardless of whether the user sending and/or the user receiving expresses consent; the comments system works fine for public conversations.

[mark]

Implemented: https://github.com/zorkian/dw-free/commit/17bad4534c87fe74f64c774cf13152e187451fe8

@ notation doesnt work on crossposts

[tinny]

That is a very cool feature! Unfortunately, I just noticed today that it doesn't transfer through on crossposts.

I definitely want the expansion to come first, and then see the expanded code on lj. Because lj doesn't know what to do with the @, and the links get lost.

So I've gone back to writing the user tag in my posts, so they get crossposted correctly.

(Where would I submit this so it gets considered as a thing to be implemented?)

[vaxhacker]

I like the idea in general but I can see myself typing "@foo" sometimes without intending to be referring to a person since I blog about programming languages and adjacent topics sometimes. As suggested, this would make the markup nondeterministic depending on whether foo happened to be the name of a user at that particular time, with unpredictable results.

I think it's fine in markdown format but have the above concern about it appearing in other formats. Perhaps if it was never expanded if inside other tags like <tt>@foo</tt> or <pre>@foot</pre>, which would at least protect the use case I have in mind?

[vaxhacker]

Oops. And of course, after posting that I realized how old the thread was and that it's already implemented. Never mind :)