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    generally those two people are the owner of the underlying post you are commenting on (already happens), and one other @person
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Apr 24, 2011 at 21:09
  • 33
    @Jeff there are cases where you need to notify a large number of people - and a part of them simply won't be notified, with the system giving no feedback about this. It's unexpected and counter-intuitive, and I don't understand why this is done this way.
    – Pekka
    Commented Apr 24, 2011 at 21:11
  • 1
    there's no valid case for "I need to notify a large number of people" -- at least not one I will support by writing software for it.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Apr 24, 2011 at 21:13
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    @Jeff there are valid cases, for example when a question deserves to be reopened again upon being edited after a long discussion.
    – Pekka
    Commented Apr 24, 2011 at 21:14
  • 3
    @Jeff: people who really want to notify more than one person will then create one comment for each person he/she wants to notify. At least allowing more than one notification would prevent the extra moderation needed due to a flood of comment.
    – Eldros
    Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 12:40
  • 5
    @Jeff Here's a case where it was necessary: hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/639/… Two people commented on my post asking for enhancements. I had to make two comments to notify them both.
    – user168625
    Commented Nov 22, 2011 at 19:57
  • @justin no, you didn't "have" to do that. If these users are interested, they can follow up themselves.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 12, 2012 at 7:31
  • 36
    @Jeff I can tell you that I've missed more interesting stuff by not being notified by the system than I've been annoyed by the stuff I was notified about. You can still ignore notifications when you see them. But I can live with the current behaviour of the system clearly telling you that it's not possible to @ more than one person - at least this way, there are no misunderstandings.
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 12, 2012 at 8:03
  • 4
    @JeffAtwood This question is a good example of where I needed to do this. I wanted to ask both commenters how the web.xml change worked out for them.
    – theblang
    Commented Apr 9, 2013 at 16:10
  • 7
    It actually happens often, that I need to notify 2 people! Several times per day! Like in this question.
    – Tomas
    Commented Jun 30, 2013 at 7:38
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    It happens very often to me in case when 2 people are commenting on my answer.
    – Tomas
    Commented Jun 30, 2013 at 16:30
  • 1
    .. and in this question I needed to notify all the answerers that something important changed in my question!
    – Tomas
    Commented Aug 7, 2013 at 14:58
  • @Jeff, yet another case where I had to submit the same comment twice to notify all the people involved.. But also see the above comments for even more relevant cases.
    – Tomas
    Commented Oct 31, 2013 at 9:51
  • 7
    @JeffAtwood By that logic, why have notifications in the first place? Surely a user can just follow up themselves on any questions/answers in which they're interested?
    – Drazen Bjelovuk
    Commented May 12, 2015 at 12:27
  • 2
    I would honestly be fine with being able to "@" two non-owners per comment. I haven't come across a situation where more than that was necessary. But it seems clear that only allowing one is a nuisance far too often, and is ultimately inhibiting the quality of discourse on SO.
    – MichaelChirico
    Commented Nov 17, 2015 at 21:54