@Chris Frederick

Note that this feature will not automatically complete names when the conversation is between the OP and 1 other person: it's smart enough to know that the @mention is unnecessary.

What about users who aren't "smart" enough to know that the system works in an inconsistent manner?

They might think that something is broken when the auto complete doesn't work as expected. They might even create "noise" by adding another comment about the fact that the @username functionality appears to be broken.

This isn't a hypothetical scenario, it just happened.

To clarify, the scenario that just happened was that someone commented on a question that I posted and when I went to reply to his comment, I expected the comment system to work in the same fashion as it had on all of the previous occasions that I has used the @username in a comment. It didn't, so it appeared to me that something was broken. I bothered to search in meta to see if I could find out why. Many users won't put in that effort and will wind up "misunderstanding" how the comment system works.

And @balpha, I didn't downvote your comment.

@Chris Frederick

Note that this feature will not automatically complete names when the conversation is between the OP and 1 other person: it's smart enough to know that the @mention is unnecessary.

What about users who aren't "smart" enough to know that the system works in an inconsistent manner?

They might think that something is broken when the auto complete doesn't work as expected. They might even create "noise" by adding another comment about the fact that the @username functionality appears to be broken.

This isn't a hypothetical scenario, it just happened.

To clarify, the scenario that just happened was that someone commented on a question that I posted and when I went to reply to his comment, I expected the comment system to work in the same fashion as it had on all of the previous occasions that I has used the @username in a comment. It didn't, so it appeared to me that something was broken. I bothered to search in meta to see if I could find out why. Many users won't put in that effort and will wind up "misunderstanding" how the comment system works.

@Chris Frederick

Note that this feature will not automatically complete names when the conversation is between the OP and 1 other person: it's smart enough to know that the @mention is unnecessary.

What about users who aren't "smart" enough to know that the system works in an inconsistent manner?

They might think that something is broken when the auto complete doesn't work as expected. They might even create "noise" by adding another comment about the fact that the @username functionality appears to be broken.

This isn't a hypothetical scenario, it just happened.

@Chris Frederick

Note that this feature will not automatically complete names when the conversation is between the OP and 1 other person: it's smart enough to know that the @mention is unnecessary.

What about users who aren't "smart" enough to know that the system works in an inconsistent manner?

They might think that something is broken when the auto complete doesn't work as expected. They might even create "noise" by adding another comment about the fact that the @username functionality appears to be broken.

This isn't a hypothetical scenario, it just happened.

To clarify, the scenario that just happened was that someone commented on a question that I posted and when I went to reply to his comment, I expected the comment system to work in the same fashion as it had on all of the previous occasions that I has used the @username in a comment. It didn't, so it appeared to me that something was broken. I bothered to search in meta to see if I could find out why. Many users won't put in that effort and will wind up "misunderstanding" how the comment system works.

And @balpha, I didn't downvote your comment.