# Change to the way user mentions are displayed
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [1월 29, 2016, 1:36오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667 "2016-01-29T01:36:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 1:36오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/1 "2016-01-29T01:36:52Z")
Not sure if this is related to the recent DDoS attack, but I have noticed that user mentions look different than they used to. Now if I mention @jomaxro it appears to have a grey font color. Before, it would look like this:  with black text.
Is this a side effect of the attack, or a feature change I just missed 😉?
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 1:38오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/2 "2016-01-29T01:38:09Z")
Not related, it was a recent change made.
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/6d6d8842d234ecd1035e91693ee431eb1cb9a400](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/6d6d8842d234ecd1035e91693ee431eb1cb9a400)
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 1:38오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/3 "2016-01-29T01:38:42Z")
Ah, thanks. Any particular reason why (that you know of)?
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 1:39오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/4 "2016-01-29T01:39:49Z")
No idea. I’m not a fan of it yet, as I find it harder to find where I am mentioned in a long topic now, but I need to give it more time. The contrast is now horrid for those with eye sight problems.
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 1:42오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/5 "2016-01-29T01:42:20Z")
> [@cpradio](#):
>
> I’m not a fan of it yet
I tend to agree with you here. Yes, change is hard (for everyone), but I agree that it is tougher to see, and without knowing the reason the change was made it seems like change for the sake of change.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 2:21오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/6 "2016-01-29T02:21:21Z")
> [@jomaxro](#):
>
> it is tougher to see,
Yes, not everyone has good vision. For me it looks like a grey bar unless I move closer and squint. 
For me it isn’t so hard to read bolded
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 2:30오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/7 "2016-01-29T02:30:01Z")
@codinghorror I find the contrast a bit too soft, can we lighten the gray background a bit?
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### Author:  [@jesselperry](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jesselperry)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 2:39오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/8 "2016-01-29T02:39:37Z")
Or just drop the background altogether?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 3:11오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/9 "2016-01-29T03:11:18Z")
Actually I think the foreground should be dropped to `#646464` which would match the username color used in the top of posts.
Current new combo fails [WebAIM: Contrast Checker](http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/) which is particularly painful on sections of text you need to read.
Many people have crappy monitors that do bad with problem contrast and many people have eyes that can not cope with it.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 4:06오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/10 "2016-01-29T04:06:09Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> he foreground should be dropped to #646464 which would match the username color used in the top of posts.
Probably fine, but #222 was too black.
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [1월 29, 2016, 3:05오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/11 "2016-01-29T15:05:21Z")
Having trouble understanding the motivations here too. I’m finding the latest revision harder to read.
Maybe worth a closer look at what Slack does? @mentions that I’m not included on look like normal links. Ones that mention **@me** or **@groups** i’m in directly are highlighted in yellow.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [1월 30, 2016, 11:29오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/12 "2016-01-30T23:29:38Z")
@mcwumbly I just adjusted it to match the same color of the username in the post title. I think it is reasonable, perhaps we can play with bolding it as well to have a complete match.
I think that highlighting whe you are mentioned is a very interesting idea. First step is to get the class in, but its a bit tricky cause we would need to run a markdown postprocessor on every post we ever display.
UX wise I think its interesting that #Contribute > UX link is considered “more” important than a mention, which is just an observation.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [1월 30, 2016, 11:33오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/13 "2016-01-30T23:33:25Z")
I kind of like it in bold 1px smaller.
It ties super cleanly with the way we display username in the topic title, so brain goes … ahh this is a username, right away.
@codinghorror should I make this change?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [1월 30, 2016, 11:34오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/14 "2016-01-30T23:34:13Z")
Sure bold would be consistent with category hash so that’s fine.
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### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [1월 31, 2016, 9:21오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-to-the-way-user-mentions-are-displayed/38667/15 "2016-01-31T21:21:16Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> but its a bit tricky cause we would need to run a markdown postprocessor on every post we ever display.
No? Just a decoratePost callback with `this.$('.mention[href="/users/' + username + '"]').addClass('you-mention');`