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For things such as how to make a proper link that does not take people away from their instance, see !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca.
That's super old info. That was fixed in like the first update after the exodus.
You've been able to just write the name in !community@instan.ce format and it will work ever since.
And doing so is better because there're a bunch of cases where using a hyperlink won't work.
I've had situations where that doesn't work for me, or like where I will start typing and it won't expand quite properly - e.g. typing !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca expands not to !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca but like to !newtolemmy!newtolemmy@lemmy.ca. The latter repeatedly happened to me on a desktop Chrome. Also if you user-block an instance, then the name expansion process no longer works.
There are actually two types of expansions - one done after you post, another while you are still writing. Neither of which I have ever seen written up in any guide anywhere, other than release notes from as you say like a year ago. Similarly I have not seen guides to cross-posting, in e.g. the Getting started guide.
Edit: oh, and this is the first I am hearing that the former expanded links won't work - do you know when that happens? Maybe apps, or perhaps non-Lemmy Fediverse Mbin or PieFed? This is the first I am hearing of this iirc.
Finding out how things work on Lemmy, for those of us who do not use Arch btw, is a terrible process for new users. I was thinking, it sure would be nice if there was not just a single post here and there such as Lemmy.ml's What is Lemmy.ml (that is the exact link that appears in their sidebar though), but an entire community somewhere where such guidance could be posted. If not this one, then somewhere else - but this is the only one like that that I have seen.
Edit: if you know more about when links won't work, perhaps you can post the thought in that community?
Expanded?
No. You literally just type the name of the community. Plaintext. No extra steps of any kind.
Look at that first community mention you wrote, it turned into a link.
Both the webUI and basically every client will then make it clickable in a suitable way for each user on whatever instance. The post itself is still just plaintext, the lemmy server doesn't change anything to add a link, the clients do.
If you use a hyperlink, or let the webUI autocomplete it into a hyperlink (which is what I think you mean by, "expanding" it), it wont be a relative link anymore. It's then a "normal" markdown hyperlink. Which technically wont work right as-is unless you edit it to be relative, which breaks in other situations.
Using relative markdown links was always a stopgap, and is no longer necessary.
But then absolute links are being fixed, as many clients will now open absolute links, as if they were relative.
Except then you have to know the proper community name, which can often look very different from what is displayed. e.g. !world@lemmy.world is an entirely different community than !worldnews@lemmy.world, and damn, that example did not work bc both end up as "valid" links. Well, theoretically sometimes the feedback on having gotten the name correct could be helpful I suppose.
Also I note that what you are saying can seem in contradiction with the help docs. If you start a post or reply and click the help icon in the web UI, it will go to https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/02-media.html, which does not mention the word "community" at all, but does show link syntax. I am more inclined to believe you than the help docs! Especially when we can see the resulting behavior in front of our very eyes - except where it may pertain to other methods of access - but I am pointing out here again that for a new user, finding out such things is currently a terrible process! Even Arch Linux has at the very least man pages, as well as the wikis!
But I've been on the Fediverse since the Rexodus, and since I don't use apps other than the webpage UI (I tried Voyager but while it looks nice, it doesn't seem to function well, maybe that pertains to accounts on instances other than Lemmy.world such as mine - e.g. I would reply to someone but no amount of refreshing or clicking around would let me see my reply until I force-quit and restarted the app), Mbin, PieFed or Sublinks (or Tesseract), I don't know myself what the "preferred" method of linking is. I just see what works (or not) for me. And again the help docs are of no help here.
So since you are saying that this 11-month old post is outdated, if you know the details of what would be better practice, perhaps you can write a newer post explaining that?
The webUIs feature to autocomplete links pre-dates the new way of doing it.
It has not been removed, or changed to autocomplete to plaintext for some reason.
No other client does it, afaik.