Oh, I see. Voyager doesn’t show that because display names are confusing for mentions, can be used to impersonate, and distracting. It might be an option to enable in the future, off by default.

Edit:

Claim

To clarify how I really feel, here’s my hot take: display_name is a really awful feature and should be removed from Lemmy.

Why?

They are dangerous by default because the very concept implies that clients should render display_name instead of the username, if it exists. Which is unwise: Apps have to choose between replacing (bad for impersonation/UX/distraction reasons) and showing both (which just looks duplicative most of the time).

What makes this feature even more frustrating is that people are now using display names for their username + flairs of actually important things, like gender identities. (for example, display_name="Alex (he/his)")

It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation for Lemmy clients. Some people are using display_name for important info like gender identities, and yet display_name is so incredibly easy to impersonate people and otherwise abuse.

Solution?

What is the solution? I think Lemmy should ditch display_name and replace with flair (or something like this). The general idea is that flair is NOT a replacement for your username, but rather it will be displayed alongside it.

Maybe even make flair per-community like Reddit. I think that was a much better design than what Lemmy currently has.