@evan well, that's just one example... if you wanted to look at hashtags, then what is there to actually do with them from a parsing standpoint? they don't translate to links. they're just meant to make searching for them easier as a token. auto-linking to a local filter/search is a courtesy that isn't actually crucial to their function. and you still have to consider the usual "which characters are allowed", "how do you delimit them", "which character starts them" -- what about bangtags? etc