Hyphens in Hashtags

Features and Ideas
1

For the sake of simplifying the use of Tags, it seems that it would be best if hyphens were treated as a non-character. This way, if a person is watching #animal-liberation, they also get results from #animalliberation without having to add both tags. If hyphens were simply removed from tags (another option), there are other gains to be made, as it would improve interoperability for those who cross-post with other services that do not allow hyphens in their tags. Yet another option would be to automatically remove hyphens from tags when cross-posting to those services.

Note: This discussion was imported from Loomio. Click here to view the original discussion.

2

Good idea! +1

3

So, which of the three options mentioned do you think would be best or most easily implemented?

4

dots (.) are also not allowed on hashtags. For example #node.js doesn’t work.

5

I like treating it the same and also removing hashtags when crossposting to other services.

6

It looks like hyphens are properly supported by hashtags now. :wink:

7

Hyphens are supported, but because there is no community standard on their usage, tags that should be equivocal are treated separately, ie #big-band and #bigband bring up different results even though it seems obvious that when a person posts one they mean the same thing as the other. It also doesn’t resolve issues with the fact that hyphens are not usable in tags on services which are available for cross-posting.

8

Proposal: Treat hyphenated and non-hyphenated tags as the same.

In order to simplify tag usage, I propose that hyphens be ignored in them, allowing #a-big-dog to be treated as the same tag as #ABigDog so that users can choose to use hyphens or not, without it effecting the results, much as capitalization is already ignored in tags.

Outcome: Looks like a strong consensus for treating hyphenated and non-hyphenated tags as the same.

Votes:

  • Yes: 23
  • Abstain: 0
  • No: 0
  • Block: 0

Note: This proposal was imported from Loomio. Vote details, some comments and metadata were not imported. Click here to view the proposal with all details on Loomio.

9

I think this proposal has already been made and passed on a previous occasion. I agree with it anyway.

10

Added a week to the proposal - a week is too little for a large technical detail like this.

If it’s been voted before, this vote result should replace that one.

11

If Goob’s right, I apologize. I haven’t been on loomio in some time, but I remembered having posted this convo some time ago.

12

I don’t know why I didn’t think about underscores.

13

Soooo to clarify, this proposal only talks about changing the way searching tags works? So I search for #LinuxUser and #Linux-User and #Linux_User and they bring the same result?

14

Underscores were not part of the original proposal (but definitely a good idea), but other than that, yes, though it should have the same effect on your stream.

15

@armandoluscher well, currently when you search for tags, for example #LinuxUser - you get results for that. No logic to make for example a search for #LinuxUser tag also contain the posts with tags #Linux-User and #Linux_User.

16

No logic to make for example a search for #LinuxUser tag also contain the posts with tags #Linux-User and #Linux_User.

I think that would be very helpful. Semantically it’s the same search; it’s just a slightly different text string to a computer. Is there any occasion you can think of in which someone searching for #LinuxUser wouldn’t want to see results also from #Linux-User and #Linux_User?

17

@jasonrobinson Did you mean to say there is no computer-logic implemented yet, or that you see no logic in making this change?

In other words: Do you or don’t you think it makes sense to handle tags with hyphens/underscores the same as their counterparts without them?

The way you phrased it is quite ambiguous :slight_smile:

18

Did you mean to say there is no computer-logic implemented yet

Ah, that is an interpretation I hadn’t considered.