Three questions

[Yoshi155]

First, why do users sometimes use @/(username)? For example, @/Yoshi155? Is it when you want to reference someone without notifying them? Because if that's the case, why not just not use the "@" in the first place. Secondly, what exactly does ignoring someone do? Third, sometimes I have a thread watched but I don't receive notifications. Does this happen after a while, or does something specific need to happen?

 

[xSuperMario64x]

1. yes, it's so that other users can know that you are referring to a specific person on here without having to ping said person. I suppose you could just write their username without the @/, but I prefer to put that before so my posts tells others "hey I'm referring to this specific user on this forum, and I want them to be mentioned without me pinging them."

2. I believe it just makes it so that the person can't send you DMs or VMs, I'm not sure what it does beyond that. I don't think it hides their posts from your view.

3. when you watch a thread you have to specify that you want to receive notifications, so it might be a good idea to check and make sure you have that set. now if it send you notifs and stops after a while, then I'm not sure.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

First, why do users sometimes use @/(username)? For example, @/Yoshi155? Is it when you want to reference someone without notifying them? Because if that's the case, why not just not use the "@" in the first place. Secondly, what exactly does ignoring someone do? Third, sometimes I have a thread watched but I don't receive notifications. Does this happen after a while, or does something specific need to happen?

1. Using the @ symbol would notify other users that you mentioned their names. Some users don’t want to be notified.
2. If you ignore someone, their posts in a thread or another member’s quote will disappear, and any thread they created will be gone from the board. You can click “show ignored content”, and you can see their threads or posts, but with an additional note that you’re ignoring them. You can also see them upvote other users. You also won’t receive their PMs or VMs, but you can receive Bells or collectibles. But ignoring other members won’t hide your profile or posts to the users you’re ignoring, unlike on Facebook.
3. If you choose to receive notifications when someone posted in your thread, that can be done in your preferences settings.

 

[Belle T]

I believe they're asking why would you use the @ symbol at all if you didn't wish to notify them (as signified by the / placed after the @).

My presumption was that people did that because they didn't feel like scrolling up to confirm the spelling of someone's name (and indeed I can sympathize that this is very inconvenient to do on mobile) so they used the auto-complete from the @ system to automatically fill it in and then used the / to cancel out the mention, so as not to inconvenience the person they were mentioning with an unnecessary notification. I usually see it in association with statements like "I agree with @/Belle T 's statement about the deplorable state of modern corn dogs," where you may wish to echo someone's sentiments but you can't picture that the other user would really benefit from receiving a push notification (or email notification if they have that turned on) for something so trivial.

Meanwhile, if you were doing commissions or wanted to hear the specific thoughts of a person on a topic, you might say, "This informational documentary on the North American tree slug is very fascinating; I'm sure it will be of much interest to @Belle T who is an unrivaled expert in this field of study."

That's just my presumption anyway; I don't claim to actually know.

 

[Hunter_Gr33n]

Third, sometimes I have a thread watched but I don't receive notifications. Does this happen after a while, or does something specific need to happen?

Sometimes when I mark notifications for a specific thread as read enough times, I stop getting notifications for it after a while. I seem to get notifications again after checking the thread though.

 

[Yoshi155]

Sometimes when I mark notifications for a specific thread as read enough times, I stop getting notifications for it after a while. I seem to get notifications again after checking the thread though.

This is the thing that I'm talking about, I was wondering why threads just stop notifying me until I check the thread again.

 

[Aquilla]

I think most questions have been answered in detail, I just want to add that the ignore feature means you won’t see the posts and comments of the user you ignore anymore. If they reply to a thread you won’t see their post. Instead you see a grey font that says “show ignored content“ that you can click to see the ignored person’s post once, without having to unignore them. This feature is helpful if you feel someones posts don’t align with your views and you prefer to not see their content anymore.

 

[Croconaw]

I think most questions have been answered in detail, I just want to add that the ignore feature means you won’t see the posts and comments of the user you ignore anymore. If they reply to a thread you won’t see their post. Instead you see a grey font that says “show ignored content“ that you can click to see the ignored person’s post once, without having to unignore them. This feature is helpful if you feel someones posts don’t align with your views and you prefer to not see their content anymore.

And people won’t know if you’re ignoring them. You aren’t notified if someone is ignoring you. This way, you can ignore someone without having to worry about them knowing.

 

[~Kilza~]

For #1: This has been answered (referencing w/o pinging), but I do want to highlight something interesting about XenForo's ping system. For anybody curious, pings only happen when a post is initially posted. If you edit a mention or quote in, or have a post get auto-merged, the ping won't happen. So if you really wanted to do, say, @~Kilza~ instead of @/~Kilza~ but didn't want to ping me, you could just do the initial post as @/~Kilza~, edit the / out, and get @~Kilza~ without pinging me. Alternatively, you could add the User tag's yourself, since that causes it to not send the ping.

For #2: This has also been answered, but something I didn't see anybody mention is that you also won't be notified for anything that user does (i.e. they react to a post of yours). Also, just re: PMs from an ignored user, you'll never be able to see PMs they send you directly during the time you're ignoring them. They don't even become visible if you stop ignoring them, oddly enough. But you'll see their messages in PMs started by a user you're not ignoring.

For #3: When you watch a thread, you'll be notified for the first unread post in that thread. Any posts after that won't produce a notification until you've read the entire thread again. Sometimes it'd be nicer if it'd just notify you for all new posts regardless of whether or not you've caught up with the thread, but this is the way XenForo has decided to set it up.

 

[-Mars-]

Not looking for trouble but just wanted to point out, people are saying that you won't receive notifications of being PM'd by a user you are ignoring nor do their PM's show up for you. But I've received notifications of being PM'd by a user I'm ignoring and their PM still shows up in my inbox(even though I still have them on ignore), maybe a glitch? But yeah ignoring someone just hides their posts and threads from your view and you can click "show ignored content" if you wish to see it anyways and you won't receive notifications of them reacting to your posts like people already stated above.

 

[Croconaw]

-snip-

I just assumed PM's would not show up because it's content from a user. And I sent a PM to someone who I'm pretty sure is ignoring me and they haven't replied. I assumed they hadn't seen it due to the fact that I'm on their ignore list.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

I just assumed PM's would not show up because it's content from a user. And I sent a PM to someone who I'm pretty sure is ignoring me and they haven't replied. I assumed they hadn't seen it due to the fact that I'm on their ignore list.

If you sent it to me, I would’ve seen it by now. Because I rarely use the ignore feature, and you are on my following list.

You can restrict who will send you PMs though. If you don’t want people doing this, or if you change your settings to where only those on your following list can, this will disable others sending you PMs. I did disable others’ ability to post on my profile unless if they’re on my following list, hence why I’m following a whole bunch of users.

 

[Croconaw]

If you sent it to me, I would’ve seen it by now. Because I rarely use the ignore feature, and you are on my following list.

It wasn't you, and it's not a big deal. The PM wasn't that important. The incident just reinforces that users likely can't receive PMs from ignored users.

 

[BetsySundrop]

This is the thing that I'm talking about, I was wondering why threads just stop notifying me until I check the thread again.

I wondered the same thing, lol. Sometimes I forget and if the notifications stop, who knows when/if I'll remember.

For the @ symbol, I think of it as "tagging" someone. So, if you want to get their attention but don't really want to send pm. Works really well with teams when you need to 'tag' several users at once. Also works well if you're trying to get people together for a game (like mafia). I believe the person tagged will receive a notification whether or not they are watching the thread.