Tags and Mentions
=================

Like many other platforms, Red uses a special notation inside messages to indicate "tags" or contextual links to other entities.

**Mentions**

Channels are tagged by simply preceding their name with the @ character.  Unless their system blocks unsolicited "mentions", the person tagged will likely receive a "Mention" post/activity or become a direct participant in the conversation in the case of public posts.

When you start to mention somebody, it will create an auto-complete box to select from your immediate connections. Select one as appropriate. Some connections will be displayed in different colours. A light blue entry (using the default theme) indicates a channel which will redeliver to others if tagged. This is generally a conversation group or forum. But be aware that when tagged, the message will also go to anybody they choose, in addition to anybody you choose.    

**Private Mentions**

If you wish to restrict a post to a single person or a number of people, you can do this by selecting channels or privacy groups from the privacy tool. You can also just tag them with a privacy tag. A privacy tag is a name preceded by the two characters @! - and in addition to tagging these channels, will also change the privacy permissions of the post to include them (and perhaps restrict the post from "everybody" if this was the default). You can have more than one privacy tag, for instance @!bob and @!linda will send the post only to Bob and Linda (in addition to any recipients you selected with the privacy selector - if any). 

You may also tag privacy groups which are "public". When you create or edit a privacy group, there is a checkbox to allow the group members to be seen by others. If this box is checked for a group and you tag (for instance) @!Friends - the post will be restricted to the Friends group. Check that the group is public before doing this - as there is no way to take back a post except to delete it. The group name will appear in the post and will alert members of that group that they are members of it.    



**Topical Tags**

Topical tags are indicated by preceding the tag name with the  # character. This will create a link in the post to a generalised site search for the term provided.  For example, #cars will provide a search link for all posts mentioning 'cars' on your site. Topical tags are generally a minimum of three characters in length.  Shorter search terms are not likely to yield any search results, although this depends on the database configuration. The same rules apply as with names that spaces within tags are represented by the underscore character. It is therefore not possible to create a tag whose target contains an underscore.

Topical tags are also not linked if they are purely numeric, e.g. #1. If you wish to use a numerica hashtag, please add some descriptive text such as #2012-elections. 

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