I just replied to a post in another thread, and out of habit I put the other person’s screen name in bold. That used to be customary here, to make it easy to find someone’s reference to your post. Are we still doing that, or will it just look peculiar?
I, for one, am still doing it.
I still do so. Just like panache45.
The @ notifys the person that he’s been mentioned. @panache45 for example is also automatically bolded.
Works the same way in Facebook discussion groups.
The trick is you gotta spell the user name correctly for the notification to happen. Seems like no one can spell mine.
I guess there’s no error checking. @aceplaace57
Still bolds but it’s not highlighted in a box like my earlier example. It did error check but very subtly.
Well, thanks. I tried it on another message board, and the other guy thought I was threatening him.
I still do it because I think it’s nice to do. I use the @ if it’s something where I think the person should be notified. I don’t use the @ if it’s just some casual reference, or if I’m just referring to Ascenray’s post a few posts above.
But I think new members may not be aware of our little tradition here, so maybe a lot of them don’t.
I do it still, but I don’t like using the @ sign, so I code it by hand.
There is a Bold button in the editor, why would you use the @ feature unless you’re trying to get someone’s attention. You can also use Control B to bold a highlight word(s).
If the person’s already posted in the thread, the name will get suggested. So if I type @ by itself, I get a list of all the people who posted in this thread and I can just select the name. Of course I would only use that if I wanted to attract that person’s attention. (@Acsenray is top of the list, so it seems to be alphabetical.)
I use Bold in the MMP thread, because many users have a MMP nickname which is different than the screen name.
I use either the @ notation or bolding, but never both.
I don’t find the list of people in the thread useful, as it goes away as soon as I type a letter, rather than keeping people in the thread on top. I’m not going to take my hand off the keyboard to select, as that will always be slower than just typing, so it needs to be within the top 3 or so for me to select it with the keyboard.
It’s another one of the design oddities of Discourse. Even Stack Exchange does it better.
Another vote for using the @ format unless shortening the name in which case I use bold. I don’t want to use @ with a short form because some day that short form may become somebody else’s username.
And we have our winner in the “how not to spell someone’s name” sweepstakes. 
Not trying to pick on you, it was all-but inevitable where poor @Acsenray’s name is concerned. As he himself said upthread.
That’s kind of my thinking as well. If I’m referring to someone who has been contributing to the thread already, then I’ll just bold it. They probably don’t want a notification telling them that someone posted something like 'As Bump said a few posts up, “blah blah blah” ’
But if I’m talking about someone who wasn’t contributing to the thread, then I’ll probably put a @ on it as more of a courtesy to let them know their name came up.
LOL, something similar happened to me. The others posters were like why in the Hell are you bolding people’s names?!
?? Discourse automatically bolds the @ notation.
Yeah, I though it was Ascenray until I tried to @ you and it didn’t highlight. Which means I was also pronouncing it wrong in my head. Never would’ve noticed if we’d stayed on the old board. I also though Puzzlegal was Puzz Legal at first.
Dayum. I learn something every day.
Not disputing with you, but that’s the direct opposite of my take on it.
If I’m going to mention you, in a thread you’re already involved in, that’s the time I think you want to know you’ve been mentioned so you can return to defend yourself, straighten me out where I’ve misunderstood you, or just preen in the knowledge that somebody else though enough of your post to springboard off it. Etc.
Not exactly.
How the @ notation appears depends on what theme you’re using. @A_NonExistent_User shows as bold in my theme. But @LSLGuy shows as sorta-bold on a medium gray background with rounded corners. Other themes are different.
And of course the @LSLGuy format is a clickable link to their user profile page. Which in turn can lead viewers to their other recent posts, threads, PMs, etc. And so is more useful to the audience than is a mere LSLGuy in bold.