Brace yourselves: @mentions are coming to NikeTalk.

Tomorrow, we're expecting to roll out a new system update that's set to include a number of bug fixes and a couple of new features.  I figured I'd take the time to go over the most prominent of these features in advance, so nobody freaks out.  

There may be some minor downtime associated with this update - but most of you won't even notice it.  

Here's what you'll get in exchange for the momentary outage:  

First and foremost, @ mentions are coming to NikeTalk.  The feature will work with our existing notifications system to let you know whenever someone mentions you on the site.  

Perhaps in the future this could be included in quotes to effectively provide quote notifications as well, which I know is something that many of you have been clamoring for over the years.  Obviously it's not the most original concept in the world, but I'm sure many of you will be glad to see it finally make its way to our forums.

In case you're wondering:

How does this work?

On the desktop site, just type @ and then begin typing a username to engage the suggestion/autocomplete drop down.  e.g. "Where's @Dirtylicious to make sense of all this?"

You can either finish typing the username yourself or select it from the list.  There will also be an @ button in the post editor, and you can enclose the name within bbcode shortcuts: @ .  

An @ mention creates a link to the user's profile and notifies them that they've been mentioned.

What if I've blocked a user, can they still mention me?  

The link will still be created, but you won't be notified.  You'll continue to ignore their posts as before.  No fuss, no muss.  

What if users try to abuse this for spam?

We'll ban them, for a start, but there's also a limit on the number of notifications that will be sent to ensure that trying to mention half of NikeTalk just to get them to look at your post won't work.  If you see people abusing the feature, just report it to the staff and we'll take care of it.  

I'm a popular person.  What if I don't want to receive an email every time somebody mentions me?

That's not a problem.  New preferences will be introduced as part of the update to give you direct control over your notifications.  

I don't like this.  Why can't we just go back to how things were in the old days, when NikeTalk was a dial-in UNIX terminal and Bryant Reeves roamed the Earth?  

Because things were the same for 10 years and that didn't stop you from complaining, either.  

We know that the @ mention feature will attract the most attention, but we'll also add some new embed options to create smarter internal links.  

In the desktop editor, click the "more" button to show the full array of options, then the embed button (which looks like this:  </>) and you can add links to threads, products, etc. in multiple formats.

Block layout:
[thread="555177"]Niketalk Celebrates 1 Year On The Huddler Platform  [/thread]
Inline (mouseover to see extra detail):
 

 [thread="555177"]Niketalk Celebrates 1 Year On The Huddler Platform​[/thread]  

It works for products as well:
[product="28152"]Jordan Aj Xx8 Mens Cement Grey White Black Gym Red  [/product]
If the product has any reviews associated with it, you'll see the average review score represented.  You can also get a price comparison, depending on availability.  There's an inline option for product links, just like thread links, to keep the footprint minimal while still offering the enhanced content on mouseover.  

So, if you're in the NBA feet thread, for example, and somebody asks "What shoes are those?", you can just click the embed button and type in the name of the shoe to add something like this to your reply.  That way, users can have easy access to all the associated reviews, buy/sell listings (if the seller has properly tagged them), and a price comparison.  

Much of this is already present in the system, but tomorrow's update expands the types of content eligible for the "smart embed" feature.  

I'm looking forward to the update and I hope you'll enjoy the added functionality.  After years of stagnation with the old platform, I hope you're all as pleased as I am to experience regular progress.  

No.

Cool. I remember some people talking about this a while back.

BTW, where the heck is Dirty?

cool beans.

I was going to post that exact same clip.  

Instead of bringing mentions, bring back the wait period.


never mind, I remember they can't be brought back.

i was thinking about notifications of when you got quoted

not sure how i feel about the @ stuff

we'll see

I got no qualms with this. I was sort of doing it anyway. Now people will be notified of the mention. Sweet.

I wasn't initially a fan of this idea, but the new site has performed beyond my expectations, so I'll trust that this will be fine as well.

I look forward to the impeding overreaction.

@ mentions is cool with me

should be good

Where's @Mayor of NYC to make sense of this?

Hashtags soon?

Ninjahood is gonna have hundreds of notifications a day

Ace93 said:

Hashtags soon?

Click to expand...

@LetsStartWithAtSignsFirst

#ThenTheyCanImplementHashtagsAndSeeHowThatGoesAlthoughPrepareForLongHashtagTrolling

The @ mentions will go nicely with the next installment of "the list."

Would definitely like to see quote notifications much like slickdeals

Bans about to go up. Dudes gonna be at each other necks in the NBA thread this season   

Kind of hype.

I think calling users out will get more interesting.

Also I think for any threads with lots of discussion and debates it will make response times much shorter.

I'm all for it.

I made a reference to Big Country in a casual conversation just earlier today

not sure how i feel about the @ stuff

Click to expand...

If I had my way, the @ would just be the shortcut used to create the mention and wouldn't actually appear within the mention itself.  We, of course, want to encourage natural communication on our forums.  We do NOT want to turn NikeTalk posts into a hash of jargon, sentence fragments, and formatting codes.  #tacky #tweentalk  

We'll monitor how the feature is being used.  The goal with this feature, as with every feature, is to achieve confluence rather than confusion.  It's merely intended to introduce a convenience that users already appreciate to our existing format.  

NikeTalk is a big, fast paced community.  

It's frustrating to miss something, and it's my hope that the @ mention function will make it easier for you to keep up with all of the different conversations you might take part in or find interesting at any given moment.  

It's designed to address a very common need:  if someone's talking about you, odds are you'd like to know about that.  And if you don't want to, that's fine - you can just disable the notifications for @ mentions.  

CoolGrayMemo said:

Instead of bringing mentions, bring back the wait period.

Click to expand...

It's easy for you to propose making it harder to become a new member given that you ARE a member.  You could ask that we require all new users to pass a citzenship exam and submit a pint of blood and it would cause you no stress.  

We have to try and maintain a balanced system that allows us to admit new users while at the same time protecting our community and its members from spam and abuse.  The existing system needs some tuning, to be sure, but the primary difference between garbage posts today and garbage posts 3 years ago is that 3 years ago you didn't have a slogan to shout at every single instance as a ready-made excuse.  We had PLENTY of this nonsense on the old system, and legitimate new users suffered more as a result of the membership by approval process than did persistent forum trolls.  

It's a bit unfair to ask thousands of new users to shoulder the burden because we have a small handful of malcontents with no lives and more free time than sense who refuse to accept that they're not wanted here.  

The bottom line is that ALL OF US have the power to make a difference in this respect.  

If people reported even HALF the posts they cry "waiting period" over, staff response times would be far swifter than they are right now - and if users stopped giving trolls the attention they so desperately crave, they wouldn't choose to target our forums to begin with.  

ninjahoods twitter has been waiting for this

I like it, are hashtags a part of the near future Meth?