# Mentioning Categories instead of Groups?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** markdown-it-review
**Created:** [11 באפריל, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697 "2014-04-11T20:10:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [10 בינואר, 2016, 11:51am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/41 "2016-01-10T11:51:13Z")
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> That said, I think it could be expanded to allow tag mentions too though… how many places will have namespace collisions with category names and tag names? A different styling could be applied to differentiate whether the link were going to a tag vs. a category.
Actually this is a problem that needs to be solved regardless of tags. It’s already possible to run into namespace collisions with Sub-categories.
(Whichever category first claims the namespace will own that namespace, and even if you get to choose between multiple options in the drop-down, the resulting link will always point to the “dominating” category.)
And it’s not such an unlikely scenario. A multilingual forum for instance could have `/c/english/support` and `/c/english/support`.
@riking’s suggestion of adding colors would help a lot, but I think it’d be best if also the complete path of the sub-category was shown in the hastag, e.g. `#english:support`
I think this use case needs to be solved before we throw tags into the mix.
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [10 בינואר, 2016, 12:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/42 "2016-01-10T12:13:26Z")
Hmm clashing category slug is a problem.. I’ll look into a fix for it.
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [12 בינואר, 2016, 8:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/43 "2016-01-12T08:47:02Z")
Ok fix is here 🙂
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/3956](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/3956)
---
### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [13 בינואר, 2016, 2:09am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/46 "2016-01-13T02:09:31Z")
Posting here to say thanks for the fix…
…and deal with then unremovable unread topic from whispers…
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [18 בינואר, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/47 "2016-01-18T15:12:54Z")
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/3965](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/3965)
Had to fix some styling issues with headers tag. Let me know what you guys think!
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [18 בינואר, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/48 "2016-01-18T22:56:52Z")
Did we test will bar and box category styles as well? We should definitely test that.
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2016, 6:51am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/49 "2016-01-19T06:51:49Z")
# I just pushed this #Contribute > Feature for everyone to try it out
I just pushed this #Contribute > Feature for everyone to try it out
🙂
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2016, 7:21am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/50 "2016-01-19T07:21:20Z")
Yeah, not sure if we need to be click tracking that internal link 😊
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2016, 7:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/51 "2016-01-19T07:36:51Z")
Good point, we actually have code to ignore this.
---
### Author:  [@Tom\_Newsom](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Tom_Newsom)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2016, 10:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/52 "2016-01-19T10:59:07Z")
Very nice 🙂
With the addition of Topic mentions (and autocomplete), making interconnected wikis will be much nicer!
Thought: Discoverability
@mentions are easy to understand, because the @ appears in the styled text. If I #mention a category, it hides the #. I foresee lots of “how did you do that?” posts, or worse: people not using the feature because they don’t know how.
Try:
---
### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/53 "2016-01-19T16:29:21Z")
If I mention #howto, the link is `https://meta.discourse.org/c/10-howto` whereas if I mention #howto:tips-and-tricks, the link is `https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/tips-and-tricks/45`.
If I follow the former, the “10-” in the link remains, while in the latter the “/45” is cleaned out.
Any good reason for this discrepancy? I like my URLs clean 😛
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 12:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/54 "2016-01-20T00:37:25Z")
`https://meta.discourse.org/c/10-howto` is a supported URL and I believe `https://meta.discourse.org/c/howto/10` was never implemented because it’ll clash with the routes of child categories. Is the `10` an id or a category name? 😄
The other link is actually a redirect which is why `/45` is removed from the route.
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/55 "2016-01-20T00:40:54Z")
Also another feature that I sneaked in unintentionally/intentionally is with regards to how read restricted categories are displayed to users. Instead of decorating the link, read restricted categories will appear as normal text for users who do not have the permission to view the category.
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 6:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/56 "2016-01-20T06:04:39Z")
Thanks for the feedback 🙂 Just implemented it #Contribute > Feature 👍
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 6:16am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/57 "2016-01-20T06:16:23Z")
Nahh I object to the hash there, its odd, I vote to remove it @codinghorror ?
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 6:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/58 "2016-01-20T06:23:43Z")
I actually agree with the visible hash, it is like name mentions with no @ symbol, how would you ever learn how to do it?
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 6:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/59 "2016-01-20T06:28:15Z")
I know is it somewhat bikesheddy but perhaps try it with the hash on the outside, maybe adjust spacing a bit?
Something does not look right to me, not sure exactly how to fix though.
---
### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 8:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/60 "2016-01-20T08:44:04Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> I know is it somewhat bikesheddy
Did somebody call me?
I want to throw our the idea that we go back to the text-only rendering with the hash symbol.
We don’t show mini-avatars for user mentions after all.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 8:48am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/61 "2016-01-20T08:48:07Z")
I did not object to the plain-URL rendering form, so I don’t have strong feelings here.
Some thoughts:
- we spend a lot of time educating people about categories and it is nice to tie the visual styles together to reinforce that.
- `#categories` will naturally get mentioned a lot less than `@usernames`, so having a more “energetic” rendering style isn’t a big deal.
- when we bring tags under the same namespace, that means it will have two different rendering styles, so perhaps @mcwumbly is right on this long term. Simple is good.
- I do believe rendering the hash is important otherwise people will not learn how to type these mentions without special effort
I lean towards “let’s just use the plain URL form for now”, particularly if we want to unify the tag namespace..
---
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2016, 8:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697/62 "2016-01-20T08:54:10Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> not sure exactly how to fix though.
Unless someone knows some CSS magic It would require adding a wrapper element, but I think lightening it up a bit helps some. eg. #222 to #999
[Previous page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697.md?page=2)
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mentioning-categories-instead-of-groups/14697.md?page=4)