# Can I exclude usernames from search

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-exclude-usernames-from-search/260480>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Tags:** search\
**Created:** [April 2, 2023, 2:31am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-exclude-usernames-from-search/260480 "2023-04-02T02:31:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 10

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**Author:** ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2023, 4:55am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-exclude-usernames-from-search/260480/10 "2023-04-04T04:55:30Z")

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> [@DanFFA](#):
>
> (this particular instance was an ETF ticker in a finance community).

As a concrete example I am guessing

1. a user called themselves msft\_2000
2. Now every time someone says “What @msft\_2000 says” or “what msft\_2000 says” this shows up in search

I am honestly not sure what the right thing is to do, I would probably approach this in the reverse direction.

- Some special plugin that turns MSFT → “magical msft onebox with extra data”
- Parse search queries for known stock tickers and do a transform on the search query.

It is certainly going to be very complicated and costly. Only simple workaround I can think of is renaming users.

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