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Every post on meta about @ replies talks about putting them in comments.

Do they work in questions or answers as well?

Ex:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/11364895/190829

Will someone be notified that they were mentioned in a question or answer if you put @ in front of their username?

If not, how do-able is that? Sorry, I have no insight here as to whether it is possible or practical to implement this feature.

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No, they don't. The only person that gets notified when you post an answer is the user who asked the question.

This is one of the major misconceptions of the SE platform: people posting communication as answers. The remedy is to achieve 50 reputation, which allows you to post comments on any question or answer.

For that matter, I'm not sure that @replies even work on ordinary forums, so I don't know how that convention got started anyway.

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    Probably @Twitter? – animuson♦ Jul 9 '12 at 16:47
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    Ah, Twitter. Reducing your attention span since 2006.™ – user102937 Jul 9 '12 at 16:48
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    It wasn't Twitter. Started in blog comments and forums. Twitter just bred it into people that it should work all the time in any other context. @ani – random Jul 9 '12 at 16:53
  • I don't think Twitter invented that notation, but they made it interactive on their site. – JimmyPena Jul 9 '12 at 16:57
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    Minor correction @RobertHarvey, but if you put a bounty on a question you also get notified, even if you didn't post the original question. – JNK Jul 9 '12 at 16:58
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No, they don't. Questions and answers are not meant for replying to other people. Questions are for asking a new question, and answers are for answering that question.

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  • So if I want to reference someone in a question or answer, all I can do is link to their profile or a previous question/answer they wrote. – JimmyPena Jul 9 '12 at 17:02
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    I don't see why you would need to reference someone, but yes, if it's really that important to have a link to their profile... It doesn't notify them though. – animuson♦ Jul 9 '12 at 17:03
  • I asked a question which was based on a comment someone left on another answer. I wanted them to see the question. I have no other way to contact them. – JimmyPena Jul 9 '12 at 17:36
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    So in that case it would make sense to @reply to their original comment on the other question to tell them you wrote a new question concerning something they said. If that's what spawned the question, it's 100% relevant to post a link to it and notify them, as it's related to what is being discussed there. – animuson♦ Jul 9 '12 at 17:39

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