4

I read meta is used for reporting bugs in the StackExchange software. This is just a cosmetic thing:

When you add a comment to an answer starting with @name (with the name of the answerer), @name is removed as the answerer receives a notice about your comment anyhow. But when you click on edit and add it again the comment is marked edited while it's effectively not.

The question is: Is this find too lame to be reported?

6
  • 1
    When in doubt, you should almost always choose to report a bug. You did the right thing.
    – HDE 226868
    Jun 9, 2015 at 21:12
  • @KateGregory Last things first: I did not know that it gets removed. Do you really think, there's no way for software to detect that some text is exactly the same as before?
    – steffen
    Jun 9, 2015 at 21:18
  • @KateGregory boolean commentIsEdited = !commentBeforeEdit.equals(commentAfterEditAndRemovingPing);
    – steffen
    Jun 9, 2015 at 21:24
  • 1
    Since this is a bug, better wait until it's fixed then accept the answer by the dev who fixed it - while I can make good use of the reputation, I only confirmed it's a bug. Jun 10, 2015 at 9:26
  • 1
    @ShadowWizard wait until it's fixed obviously not in another 6-8 years...
    – rene
    Jun 10, 2015 at 10:19
  • @rene well, Oded was quick this time! Declined, but at least not left in the void for 6-8 eons like many bug reports. ;) Jun 10, 2015 at 14:26

3 Answers 3

9

Flow of events, as far as I can tell is: (when commenting on a post made by user named David, without comments from other users)

  1. You post the following comment:

    @David thanks a bunch, it's awesome

  2. Behind the scenes, the @David part is stripped away, leaving only this as the actual comment:

    thanks a bunch, it's awesome

  3. You edit the comment, adding back the @David part and saving the edit.

  4. Behind the scenes, the @David part is stripped away again, leaving the comment the same as before, but with the pencil icon and "this comment was edited..." tooltip.

Worth to mention that submitting a comment edit that does not change anything does not make the pencil icon to appear.

This means that the check is done against the raw submitted contents, instead of against the final contents vs. existing contents - minor bug, but still - a bug.

3

That is not a bug.
You actually are editing the comment, because in some cases SE will remove the @ping.

from this answer.

The auto-complete box can determine when an @name would not be necessary to trigger a notification and in that case will not include the user in the list.

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.

3
1

I'm sure that comments like anything else in the computer world have (at least) two time stamps on them. One being created. One being last modified. When created, these two are the same. Once touched, for whatever reason, the second changes to the time of last save. If the two time hacks are not the same, the system shows it as being edited. It doesn't matter the comment ends up the same: the difference in time is all that matters. I know this is real simpleton type stuff, but seems to bear repeating in this instance.

1
  • 1
    See other answer: Worth to mention that submitting a comment edit that does not change anything does not make the pencil icon to appear.
    – steffen
    Jun 10, 2015 at 6:43

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .