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What if the @mention user decides to change his/her display name, now you need to parse @mention into a unique id and save that in the database with comment body and then translate it back when you serve it to the currently chosen @mention name...

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Why would you allow users to change their display name? It's a forum, not social media.

Checkout Remarkbox, I generate them a random display name when they sign up and then allow them to change their display name later.

Regardless of the type of application, why would you not want a user to be able to change their display name?

If I was able to change my display name on hacker news, I think I would.

Of course it's social media. The username and avatar is one's social identity on a forum. I think you have a very narrow experience with forums if you find it surprising that someone wants to change their username if you accept that they would also want to change their avatar.

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