Package: emacs X-Debbugs-Cc: Kelvin White The following change (present as of 0ee10aff098b) was introduced into lisp/erc/erc.el back this June: commit b45734ee82eecb91010eb3055c8c8bafb73a3ade Author: Kelvin White AuthorDate: Thu Jun 19 12:56:18 2014 -0400 ERC: Better user mode support --- a/lisp/erc/erc.el +++ b/lisp/erc/erc.el … @@ -4190,7 +4223,24 @@ (defun erc-format-nick (&optional user _channel-data) "Return the nickname of USER. See also `erc-format-nick-function'." - (when user (erc-server-user-nickname user))) + (let ((nick (erc-server-user-nickname user))) + (concat (erc-propertize + (erc-get-user-mode-prefix nick) + 'face 'erc-nick-prefix-face) nick))) … This added the “user mode” sign – previously kind of specific to erc-format-@nick – into the string returned by erc-format-nick. Thus, the only code difference left between the two is the (presumably accidental) lack of the (when user …) in the former: 4227 (defun erc-format-nick (&optional user _channel-data) … 4230 (let ((nick (erc-server-user-nickname user))) 4231 (concat (erc-propertize 4232 (erc-get-user-mode-prefix nick) 4233 'face 'erc-nick-prefix-face) 4234 nick))) 4250 (defun erc-format-@nick (&optional user channel-data) … 4256 (when user 4257 (let ((nick (erc-server-user-nickname user))) 4258 (concat (erc-propertize 4259 (erc-get-user-mode-prefix nick) 4260 'face 'erc-nick-prefix-face) 4261 nick)))) I believe that this change was unintended, is not helpful in any way (if the intent was to get rid of the former, it should’ve been aliased over, not redefined, shouldn’t it?), and should thus be reverted. -- FSF associate member #7257 http://boycottsystemd.org/ … 3013 B6A0 230E 334A