3
\$\begingroup\$

Often I will leave a comment on an answer that is a question waiting for an answer. For example, I might ask an answerer to clarify their answer before I will consider voting it up (or down).

However, as the system is currently setup we only get notifications of comments to questions or answers that we have written. I have to remember where I have asked questions and go check up on them every once in a while. This is terribly inefficient and means that comments will be "left to die", so to speak. It would be very useful to get notifications when a comment thread we've participated in is added to.

Is this something others would find useful? If so, how do we / should we submit it as a feature request?

Alternatively, if this is already part of the system somehow and I've just missed it, how does it work?

\$\endgroup\$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6
\$\begingroup\$

This has already been implemented. You can receive notification of comments addressed to you, even if you are not the question or answer author.

Comment @username Notifications

Normally, you only get notified of comments when you own the post that is being commented on. But now you will also get notified of any comments that refer to you by @username, even if you don’t own the underlying post. This implementation is inspired by the way Twitter handles @username mentions — although we have the additional rather severe restriction that in our system, user names are not guaranteed to be unique.

In the above example, Anthony Jones will get notified that Bruno Conde has replied to his comment. (writing out the entire username wasn’t entirely required, as will be explained shortly)

alt text

In the above example, Anthony Jones will get notified that Bruno Conde has replied to his comment.

You can read more about this feature here: New, Improved Comments With Reply

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ Ah, that's pretty awesome. Then there's one thing that I'd request as a new feature: add a "reply" arrow-icon to the buttons that are revealed when a comment is hovered over, which would populate the comment field with the username. That would make this feature very discoverable, and so others are more likely to use it and trigger a useful notification. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Commented Oct 7, 2010 at 3:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SevenSidedDie Was this feature request ever made? Also, this looks rather odd now, with a 100k+ mod being answered by a 101 rep user about basic feature. Threw me off until I saw the date, and that he's "the Director of Community Development for the Stack Exchange Network." \$\endgroup\$
    – DCShannon
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 4:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DCShannon Not as such. We have gained name-completion since then though, and generally people have learned how comments work enough to model @-replies for, and be copied by, new users. Also, Robert Cartaino is on the Community Team, so he still outdoes me in rank and knowledge anyway. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie Mod
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 4:50

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .