The links like !NoStupidQuestions@lemmy.world.
I have had a pretty bad time making those work. I have tried searching for them at the communities page, and removing the exclamation mark and pasting them on my instance (lemmy.world/c/NoStupidQuestions@lemmy.world).
Some times one of those works, other times my instance finds nothing. And if I go directly to the home instance of the community, it doesn’t bring my login.
What is the recommended way to use those?
Canonical names (the ones starting with !) are broken prior to the 0.18.0 release of Lemmy (check bottom of page to see what version your instance is on). Names seem to be working well in 0.18.1 release candidate 4. In a post they’re relative links and don’t direct away from your login instance. On the sidebar they are absolute links and direct to the home instance of the community.
Community searches are pretty broken on 0.18.0. I’m seeing it fixed on the rc.4 release candidate and canonical names are properly recognized in searches.
Those names can’t be used in the address bar of a browser, that will never change. In a browser address bar you use a format like
lemmy.ml/c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
wherelemmy.ml
represents your sign-in instance.