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It's possible to address comments to posters and also other people who have left a comment underneath a post. In this situation the commenter or poster gets pinged and is alerted to the message. Occasionally, someone edits a post and quite often I would like to communicate with them—whether it's my post or someone else's. I am certain that this is something that other members have experienced too. Being able to address comments to editors would be useful for seeking clarification, getting advice, querying aspects of the edit and so forth. This would also stop off-topic comments underneath editors' other posts where people have gone to ping them about a completely different post that they've edited. Would it be possible, please, to enable comments to editors in the comments section so that they get pinged? And would other members appreciate this feature?

Edit note:

Apparently this feature exists in the sense that editors can be pinged if you continue to type in the editor's name—but editors don't pop up automatically in the list of people who are pingable. It's clear that most users don't know this and it isn't intuitively obvious. Can we have a system whereby the editor's name pops up in the comment box so that everybody knows that they can be straight-forwardly communicated with, please?

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    Seems reasonable.
    – Mitch
    Apr 27, 2017 at 19:58
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    I've commented and sent messages to editors by pinging them under the post edited. There's no guarantee they will always reply though, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Some deliberately ignore messages from users they dislike or mistrust. I would prefer a signal that at least shows the recipient has seen the comment addressed to them, a bit like the blue ticks on WhatsApp. Best of all would be private messages.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Apr 28, 2017 at 7:29

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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You actually can already do this; you have to manually figure out the editor's username, rather than having it "pop up" for you, but if you guess correctly the editor will be pinged. See meta FAQ here:

Who can be notified with this feature?
... - Any user who has edited the post (does not include pending or rejected edit suggestions).
...
Why do some names not appear in the auto-complete box?
...
Additionally, only users who have commented on the post are ever populated into the list. Editors and other users from the post's history will never appear there, even if they are able to be notified by typing manually.

I have now tried it myself, so I can attest that it works.

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    This does work.
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    Apr 27, 2017 at 22:07
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    @AndrewLeach Yes, it does, apparently. But only in one sense. Most users, I believe, are under the impression that they can't communicate with editors precisely because their names don't appear in the auto-complete box - and so it isn't working for those people who get the impression that they can't communicate with editors. It would be good if they did appear in that list. Editors have a major responsibility and massive effect on posts - more so than commenters, I reckon :)
    – Araucaria - Him
    Apr 28, 2017 at 0:19
  • @AraucariaMan IIRC the request to allow autocompletion for editor names was not accepted because of the potential for abuse.
    – M.A.R.
    May 3, 2017 at 16:30
  • @M.A.R. Thanks old bean. Incidentally, what's IIRC?
    – Araucaria - Him
    May 3, 2017 at 18:51
  • @AraucariaMan If I Recall Correctly
    – M.A.R.
    May 4, 2017 at 7:43
  • @Jacinto, thanks! (Also, testing, testing...I'm sure it works, but now we can have an actual proof.)
    – 1006a
    May 4, 2017 at 18:20
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    1006a, yes, I got pinged. BTW it's not that hard to "figure out" the editors' usernames, and you surely do not have to guess: the last editor's username is diplayed on the post; previous ones are in the revisions page.
    – Jacinto
    May 4, 2017 at 21:01
  • @Jacinto For "guessing" I was referring to display names that include unsupported characters. For example, the answer in the linked FAQ notes that to ping user P Jones when there is also a P Smith you would want to use PJones (or at least PJ), without the space; and it's apparently impossible to distinguish between a user P. Jones and P. Smith; it will just to go whoever commented most recently. It's also unclear to me how, exactly, you would want to enter a name that is displayed using upside down characters or non-Latin text; would copying and pasting directly always work?
    – 1006a
    May 4, 2017 at 21:30
  • 1006a, I would try copy and paste, but don't know whether it works.
    – Jacinto
    May 5, 2017 at 7:51
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    Good one! Note by the way that you don't need to write the full name of the editor. Just @Jac should work to ping Jacinto: If the first word in the display name is at least three characters long, then there must be a starts-with, case-insensitive match of at least three characters in the display name (from How do comment @replies work?).
    – fedorqui
    May 9, 2017 at 11:50

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