You're most welcome Eric.
Yes, you need to re-update the changes for every update if you modify that Javascript file.
Maybe you could change it in your next update?
Currently we didn't plan to change this is because you are the only person who don't like this behaviour, perhaps you request for this changes on our forums here
https://stackideas.com/forums/easysocial/feature-requests-2 , if there a lot of user would like to change this behaviour, we will definitely consider to change this in the future.
By the way, even all the Facebook user also using this 'dash' behaviour
http://take.ms/i4khG when they tag their friend from the story form.