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Comment by PinguTS | Hacker News Reader

Incomplete Article for old well known stuff:

1. "Gmail has a wildcard for the + sign as it doesn't recognize it nor any characters that follow it." This wrong. It is well documented and called aliasing within Google. There is even a support page for it: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/12096?hl=en

2. Even that is documented: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/8158?hl=en

3. Even that is documented: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/159001?hl=en There are also a lot of ccTLDs that Google has for Gmail. Also those will work.

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Not everyone knows everything. I knew all of this, but lots of people don't.

If there's one thing I think I could change about HN, it would be that we'd be easier on people who don't know things. Many times I'll read an article about the new version of PolyDoopWerks, and be told that it's the Uber-of-OOD-builders, and have no idea what's going on.

It isn't always easy when something does seem to be common knoweldge, but you are correct that people try to be more understanding. I have adopted the attitude from this XKCD comic. https://xkcd.com/1053/

Ironically that comic and XKCD in general falls into the category of things that are very widely-known but people still present as new information. (The prime example being cryptography discussions linking to correct horse battery staple.)

+100 for the xkcd.

Perfection.

I'm relatively new here. While I do run across comments where people seem to be talking down to others, I see that they are mostly in the minority. That is very refreshing, compared to most other sites where intellectual conversations are taking place.

I usually just chalk it up to the difficulty in conveying emotion through strictly text. In the case where it is obviously not so, it's easy enough to ignore the person.

Basically, there's always going to be one or two of that guy in any conversation. I'm just happy that they're seemingly kept to a minimum on HN.

Seconded. I like reading and learning here. There is a lot I don't know. And that's cool. Most folks are in the same boat. Thanks for the comment.

True, but this works for more than 10 years. There are things called basics or common sense. (o;

Having a detailed knowledge about how google handles permutations of email addresses does not fall within the realm of common sense, nor "basics."

The length of time that it has existed is irrelevant--it's simply not commonly used yet. It's advanced usage, not basic.

To be honest, I've abandoned that use for some years now and use simply a catch-all on my domains. Much easier to use, especially as many larger organizations rejecting the + because of "fake" email address.

Yes, because everyone that uses Gmail has been doing so for 10 years. /s

While we value the knowledge you have to share with us, there are words you can choose to convey that knowledge that won't leave you coming off so brashly.

Yes, you're right about the support pages. I only knew about the "+" sign until now and it seems like lots of people didn't knew about this :)

I've seen some sites reject the + in email address forms. YMMV.

Yeah, that annoys me a lot. Always these people who want to reject "fake" email addresses not knowing that there is a lot of weired stuff allowed according to the RFC. Funny thing, mostly these are the big corporations who rejects them, the ones who also mandate secure passwords but please without a special character, only small letters and numbers, and please not more than 10 characters. Wonder what they now do with all those new gTLDs.

So a support page is what passes for documentation now?

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