Timeline for Don't remove the @ part of my comment
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
26 events
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| Feb 15, 2021 at 14:45 | comment | added | Jason S | "warts and all" | |
| Feb 15, 2021 at 14:16 | history | rollback | Jason S |
Rollback to Revision 5
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| Feb 15, 2021 at 10:00 | history | rollback | Luuklag |
Rollback to Revision 4
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| Feb 15, 2021 at 8:26 | history | rollback | Shadow Wizard |
Rollback to Revision 3
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| Feb 15, 2021 at 8:06 | history | edited | wimi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
removing duplicate "not only"
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| Jun 25, 2012 at 18:53 | comment | added | chown | Quite ironic that Jeff uses the "@t.j" to start his comments... | |
| Aug 30, 2011 at 6:38 | comment | added | Jeff Atwood | @jason that link already exists; click the help link under the "add comment" button. | |
| Jul 21, 2011 at 13:55 | comment | added | T.J. Crowder | @Jeff: I had composed yet another reply, and then I got to thinking that things were really very, very fractured at this point and decided to put together pros and cons in handy lists. And somewhere along the way of doing that, the fact that I'd never offered a constructive alternative hit me upside the head. That's not how I like to do things. And I've come up with what I think (but then I would) is a pretty good idea: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/99261/… | |
| Jul 21, 2011 at 13:29 | comment | added | Jason S |
@$#%@$#%@$%#@%!!!!! I just got a popup saying "Only one additional @user can be notified; the post owner will always be notified" thus denying me the right to use the literal @user syntax more than once in the comment even though I was using it in its literal and non-automatic form. You guys REALLY need to take your best shot at a simple, easy-to-understand webpage, and if you really feel the need to deny people posting a particular syntax, include a link to that webpage on the popup box so someone can actually understand what it is they're not supposed to do.
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| Jul 21, 2011 at 13:27 | comment | added | Jason S |
@Jeff: I get your point, but it's nearly 100% confusing to anyone who hasn't read this webpage carefully. What you mean is essentially the following: that most of the time @user: syntax is appropriate, except in this one case of answerer + one commenter, where the commenter can't add the "@user:" syntax but the answerer can. How is a new user, who may be familiar with Twitter and Facebook and other social media where @user is the norm for addressing someone else, regardless of whether it has any automated effect, supposed to understand these rules?
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| Jul 21, 2011 at 11:12 | comment | added | Jeff Atwood | @t.j. also, to the extent that people now write "Dave, did you try.." instead of "@dave did you try.." that is 100% the intended result of this change. It's more readable, and doesn't confuse new users. 99% of the time, statistically speaking, you don't need to use explicit reply notifications at all. | |
| Jul 21, 2011 at 11:09 | comment | added | Jeff Atwood | @t.j. they should just use "Firstname" to address the user, which is fine. I don't object in any way to "Dave, did you consider..", I object to "@dave did you consider.." because it's a) technically 100% incorrect b) teaches new users these same incorrect behaviors and c) extremely noisy. | |
| Jul 21, 2011 at 11:03 | comment | added | T.J. Crowder |
@Jeff: Yes, you're clear that you believe that notifications are the only purpose of @postowner. There's a large number of counters to that on this page. But you continue not to address several points. 1. Even if you were right, it's wrong to push such a silly little thing in the face of this feedback. 2. That's not the only purpose of them. 3. The change is pointless, people just put @ postowner and postowner:, both of which are just as noisy, but which actively mislead new users for when they do need to use @ to direct their comment. I'm sure there are more. #1 is esp. big.
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| Jul 21, 2011 at 10:47 | comment | added | Jeff Atwood |
@t.j. the specific harm is this: the average number of comments on a post is two. Multiply that by the ~8 million posts on Stack Overflow times the number of redundant @postowner words that are now present on our network. That's a lot of pointless noise. Also note that in the latter example Jason used above, no @usernames were required at all to get notifications as we detect when only two people are talking and auto-reply. Bottom line, unless someone explicitly indicates otherwise, comments are always directed at the post owner. That's the intent, and has always been from day one.
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| Jul 9, 2011 at 17:29 | history | edited | Jason S | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 1289 characters in body
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| Jul 9, 2011 at 17:16 | comment | added | Jason S | @JockM: "I don't believe people enter the @ so people will be notified" -- EXACTLY! I don't give a damn about how it affects notification. IMHO notification should be done when there are new posts on a question you posed, or new comments on an answer you posted or commented on, or on a question or answer that you explicitly decide you want to be notified about. To notify based on the @tags seems really risky. For one, usernames aren't unique, and for another, people don't always respond with verbatim @username tags (see @Jeff and @t.j in this thread). | |
| Jul 9, 2011 at 14:46 | comment | added | JockM | @Jeff I don't believe people enter the @ so people will be notified. I think people enter the @ because that is a convention that has evolved over years of BB and twitter use to indicate who you are talking to. That it will notify them is the last thing on my mind. I read the whole chat and don't think you have made a satisfying case to justify that @xxx is noise, and xxx is not. Nor that people enter the @ with the expectation that the person will be notified | |
| Jul 9, 2011 at 9:38 | comment | added | T.J. Crowder | @Jeff: If that link is it, it doesn't begin to do the job. Re agreeing to disagree: Hey, it's your site. Just remove the "We don’t run Stack Overflow. The community does." from stackoverflow.com/faq#reputation and similar if you're going to ignore what dozens of smart people are telling you. | |
| Jul 9, 2011 at 9:36 | comment | added | Jeff Atwood | @t.j I outlined my rationale at length in the above link. This is something I feel extremely strongly about, so we will have to agree to disagee on this indefinitely. | |
| Jul 9, 2011 at 9:34 | comment | added | T.J. Crowder | @Jeff: As with that parenting discussion, clearly your answer here isn't doing the job. I recommend another one, one which doesn't just constantly re-assert your claim that you're right, but actually lays out your points logically and completely, with those citations you talked about, including how you can possibly begin to justify the "@Joe" vs. "Joe" thing, how you respond to the complexity argument. In each case, with real arguments. Not straw men, not "I know I'm right." I also recommend re-opening your mind to the smart people here. | |
| Jul 9, 2011 at 9:31 | comment | added | T.J. Crowder | @Jeff: Oh, great, let's try to make this even more disjointed and fragmented. "I'm simply right about this." I'm sorry, I really am, but you are simply wrong about this. "@Joe" is noise but "Joe" is not? No, that's absurd, it's not even a close call. And I haven't seen any links to "specific harm" in this disjointed conversation. I have seen links to discussions of too much discussion being harmful, which is yet another straw man, I'm not disagreeing with that. | |
| Jul 9, 2011 at 9:07 | comment | added | Jeff Atwood | @t.j you can read here for a lot more detail: chat.meta.stackoverflow.com/rooms/399/… | |
| Jul 9, 2011 at 8:57 | comment | added | T.J. Crowder | @Jeff: You've said about a dozen times here that "@postowner is the same as...'hi fellow coders'". I think we all understand that you think that. What we're saying is that we disagree. Really quite a lot of us, including people who contribute at a high level to the communities. Regarding your last point, I had to respond to that in the question itself. | |
| Jul 9, 2011 at 4:59 | comment | added | Jeff Atwood | indicating that you are talking to the post owner, in the absence of any other people talking, is just as redundant as a "hi fellow coders!" salutation. All comments, by definition, notify the post owner in every possible case. Polluting signal with a bunch of redundant @postowner is the same as polluting signal with a bunch of "hi fellow coders!" Also, if you want to use someone's name without the @ symbol, nobody is preventing you from doing so. | |
| Jul 8, 2011 at 17:32 | history | edited | Jason S | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 211 characters in body
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| Jul 8, 2011 at 16:34 | history | answered | Jason S | CC BY-SA 3.0 |