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bigethan

Monday, Mar 2, 2009
@username replies will now PM the user

Comments are a bit of a ghetto.

They are great most of the time, it's hard to have conversations when there are hundreds or thousands of comments. As a way to try and thread things, dropping a twitter-style @username to reply to something someone wrote is helpful but it is, at best, a stopgap measure.

I'm here to say that, thanks to a suggestion from Elk, things just got a little better.

Now whenever you comment on something, and mention someone with the @username technique, they will get a PM with the content of the message that you sent along with a link back to the page. It should make keeping track of your comment threads a little easier, and make it easier to converse in the comments. It's far from a perfect solution, but it should help a little.

Hate it? Like it? Couldn't care less? lemme know.

updated to attribute the idea to Elk, sorry 'bout that.

Posted by bigethan, 11:26am
36 Comments | Post a Comment

Comments

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carstairs
carstairs
I just got the automated message from your last blog and was trying to find mention of it somewhere. I think it's an excellent idea, and it should make conversations in blogs much more convenient.
Posted Mar 2, 2009 12:00 pm PT
LordAndrew
LordAndrew
It seems cool as long as people don't use it as a quick and easy method of spamming people with PMs en masse.
Posted Mar 2, 2009 12:58 pm PT
bigethan
bigethan
@LordAndrew: yeah - that is certainly a concern. We've decided to trust first, and then, if it's abused, tighten up the access. We'll be listening to the community for advice and feedback as it's a fairly new idea.
Posted Mar 2, 2009 1:06 pm PT
Donkeljohn
Donkeljohn
@bigethan, I love it.
Posted Mar 2, 2009 1:10 pm PT
Elk
Elk
@bigethan Holy poop you had chance to implement my request!

I expect you'll end up having to say that you only get messages from people that you are already tracking. Trusting people always seems to end in tears.


But even still, holy poop! This will make commenting on people's blogs a lot easier to keep track of!
Posted Mar 2, 2009 1:30 pm PT
Elk
Elk
Forget about it, I'm just stoked that you had the time to add the feature
Posted Mar 2, 2009 2:01 pm PT
Caddy06_88
Caddy06_88
I like the sound of that. Nice job!
Posted Mar 2, 2009 2:36 pm PT
JodyR
JodyR
@bigethan is teh awesome.
Posted Mar 2, 2009 2:54 pm PT
s_h_a_d_o
s_h_a_d_o

Interesting ... though potentially dangerous, as noted above.
Also ... consider the situation where a comment containing the @username syntax is edited at a later stage and resubmitted ... will the user(s) contained within the body of the comment [all] be notified each and every time that [re]submission occurs?
I shall be following developments ...

Posted Mar 2, 2009 3:06 pm PT
kcwsk8
kcwsk8
Great idea. Elk should get an emblem for it.
Posted Mar 2, 2009 3:56 pm PT
horseyjesse
horseyjesse
This is awesome!
Posted Mar 2, 2009 6:04 pm PT
LordAndrew
LordAndrew
Wait, so does this work or not? I had to come back here to check for responses because I never actually got the PM.
Posted Mar 3, 2009 8:31 am PT
Elk
Elk
@LordAndrew I bet it's because he referenced you as
@LordAndrew:
not
@LordAndrew
Posted Mar 3, 2009 8:33 am PT
Diehardgames2
Diehardgames2
Wow, great add.
Posted Mar 3, 2009 8:55 am PT
jreynolds150
jreynolds150
Im new to the site but sounds like a good idea man
Posted Mar 3, 2009 4:29 pm PT
bigethan
bigethan
@LordAndrew: I'd initially typoed your username, and fixed it later in edit mode (which apparently doesn't send the PMs)
Posted Mar 4, 2009 8:36 am PT
LordAndrew
LordAndrew
@bigethan Ah, okay. I see it works now.
Posted Mar 4, 2009 8:54 am PT
GabuEx
GabuEx
How robust is the system for detecting this pattern? I usually put a space after the at sign and then append a colon to the end; will that work, or does it have to be right next to the at sign with no colon?
Posted Mar 4, 2009 2:46 pm PT
bigethan
bigethan
@GabuEx: for the messaging to work it needs to be @name without a space. But you can put whatever punctuation you want right after the name. I toyed with allowing a space between as I'd seen that pattern before on GS, but didn't wan to to get too crazy right out of the gates :-)
Posted Mar 4, 2009 8:27 pm PT
GabuEx
GabuEx
@bigethan:

Fair enough, I'll have to just remember to leave the space out until you get crazy enough to allow it.

PS: I got here through this new system and I can safely say that it's totally awesome.
Posted Mar 4, 2009 8:40 pm PT
Hungry_bunny
Hungry_bunny
@bigethan and @Elk , this is so awesome. Thank you guys.

@Hungry_bunny Just testing something
Posted Mar 5, 2009 3:26 pm PT
CodingGenius
CodingGenius
@bigethan and @elk, this is an incredible idea. It's like proactive tagging!
Posted Mar 5, 2009 5:37 pm PT
icytower
icytower
A bit late to the party, but sounds like a great feature.
Posted Mar 5, 2009 6:34 pm PT
Legolas_Katarn
Legolas_Katarn
This is great
Posted Mar 5, 2009 6:40 pm PT
arijit_2404
arijit_2404
@Elk
The greatest improvement in recent times. Thanks a lot Elk.
Posted Mar 5, 2009 7:42 pm PT
Elk
Elk
@arijit_2404 I didn't get a PM from your comment did you go back and edit it afterwards or is it the line break after the name?
Posted Mar 6, 2009 1:02 pm PT
arijit_2404
arijit_2404
@Elk I think it's the Line break. I got PM for your reply.
Posted Mar 6, 2009 6:33 pm PT
canana
canana
@bigethan will receive a PM. I think it's a good idea.
Posted Mar 8, 2009 6:13 pm PT
Colmillios
Colmillios
I think this is a awesome idea, it makes things a lot easier so thanks for the new feature idea Elk.
Posted Mar 14, 2009 10:54 am PT
BrunoBRS
BrunoBRS
well, since almost everybody use abbreviations, i dont see myself getting these PMs much.
Posted Mar 14, 2009 2:55 pm PT
bigethan
bigethan
@BrunoBRS - the hope is that people will learn the technique and its use will become more common. It may slowly develop, it may not. Whether that happens or not depends on how you guys use and promote the feature with your comments.
Posted Mar 17, 2009 12:16 am PT
BrunoBRS
BrunoBRS
well, i've already found a decent use for it... like "calling" people to places they wouldnt come back, like me and this blog that might be really useful, after all.
Posted Mar 17, 2009 9:27 am PT
-Katsuri-
-Katsuri-
Would be nice if we could control the sittings to switch it on and off.
Posted Mar 17, 2009 10:40 am PT
Hungry_bunny
Hungry_bunny
@bigethan About the "@"-reply feature. This might be Old feedback, but I don't think it's possible to use it on names that don't start with letters, like -Katsuri- (that posted in your blog just above me here). I've tried it a couple of times without success.
Posted Mar 25, 2009 1:44 pm PT
bigethan
bigethan
@Hungry_bunny - all should be well now with the hyphenated names...
Posted Mar 25, 2009 2:49 pm PT
Hungry_bunny
Hungry_bunny
It's working perfectly now ^.^ Thank you
Posted Mar 25, 2009 7:31 pm PT
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