possible new feature: tell users about a thread

Dana Jones wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:So a user would get a PM that would say "Dana thinks you would like to see this post: _____" ??

That would work. The other forum I am on, sometimes someone asks for help for their sick animal, lets say a sheep. The first people to comment on the post might not know anything about sheep, but will "call" others more proficient with sheep knowledge. @sheepwhisperer @sheepvet and then these people get notified. The way the other forum works, when I log in, I get alerts on threads that I commented on, if there is a new post. That's where the notifications show up for the "call" to a post. The alert says so-and-so mentioned you in a post, I click on it and it takes me to that post.

I am not trying to make Permies into another forum, so please don't be offended. But I think it would be a neat feature to have, the ability to call a person's attention to a thread or post. If it would be by PM, then that would work. I have read posts where a user asks a question, gets comments and another user says, that would be a question for Fred Ferklemyer, but there is no way to notify Fred that his attention is needed on that thread. Maybe Fred will find it, maybe he won't. Is there any way you could offer that option?

I get emails that there are new posts on threads that I have commented on and that really helps me find them again. I appreciate this feature!
Thanks Paul for this fantastic site.
Dana

paul wheaton wrote:

So I see two different possible features - please tell me if I am understanding this correctly ....

2301: I could set up my account so that any time anybody says "paul wheaton" I could get an email. Further, I could set up the account so that anytime anybody writes "wofati" or "apple seed" or "shippable core" I get an email.

2302: Add the ability so that if I am reading a thread and I think "Wow, Jocelyn should see this" ... wait that doesn't work, I email jocelyn stuff all the time. Let's say Julia Winter .... So from a post I could click on something that says maybe "tell a permie about this post" and then I would somehow specify julia winter and julia would get an email that would say "paul wheaton wants to direct your attention to this post.":

Cassie Langstraat wrote:

This sounds scary.. As in, you would get SO many emails from this from people not really meaning to send you too, they were just using your name in a conversation. But I s'pose you might be the only person with that problem. And other celebs on permies I guess. I'm not so worried because people don't usually use my last name. But I suppose this could be a feature you turn off, right?

I think everybody who creates an account will start off with their display name as the search-match thing. And then they can add to the list or take their name off of the list. So, yes, they can turn it off.