Eeeeek - what happened to my @ salutation?

Question

I just posted a comment beginning with @username, and my @username part of the comment disappeared (it was the first word in the comment).

Is there a lolcat inside the Stack Exchange database nomming on notifications? May I suggest you feed it?

lolcats always get peoples attention

_{P.S. I'm guessing this is a brand spanking new feature, but I can see this coming up a lot}

Answer 1

Yes, this is new.

@lerting the post owner in a comment is not necessary. If comments are only between you and the post-owner, and nobody else is commenting, then an @lert to the post owner at the beginning of a comment will be removed.

• Gilles 'SO- stop being evil': I thought there was a canonical post by Jeff which explains how this is the greatest thing ever and not at all likely to confuse people, but I can't find it, so I'm registering it here: yet another user confused by this useless feature.
• user93353: @Gilles - my question about something similar was closed - meta.stackexchange.com/questions/148389/… - However, I am still confused by this. In this post - stackoverflow.com/questions/12588249/webcryptoapi-secure-or-not - I tried to add 'at'tntu while replying to tntu's comment but it disappeared. tntu is not post owner - so It shouldn't have disappeared, right?
• fkl: It is misleading to suddenly have your @tag vanish in only some cases. I have been using SO for a while, was really confused by this feature and then i had to search for like five minutes before i finally stumbled this (above) question and explanation. At any rate this is an inconsistent usability aspect and at the very least should have SOME indication about what happened IMHO.
• Donald Duck is with Ukraine: I don't really like this feature. @name can be useful if you want to make it clear that you're responding to another comment and not commenting on the post. Also, if a user writes @name, there is a reason and so it should not be removed.
• The Harmonic Rainbow: @Rebecca Chernoff You said post owner. However, does it also work for answerers or other commenters as well?
• Ruslan: Funny, just tried to post a comment under the OP, so that it would contain <15 characters when stripped of the @lert... and guess what? The character counter at the bottom was silent, but Add comment button gave an error that the comment must be at least 15 characters in length. Very confusing for an unaware user.