I can't think of an instance where I've been annoyed that a friend has mentioned me in a comment. I'd prefer that to explicit sharing via some other mechanism anyway if they want to involve me in the discussion.
The thing that is annoying, you see a post, that you are interested in. It has 36 comments. You open the comments to read what people have to say, then you have to sit there scrolling through a list of names. In the end there is a half dozen comments. Surely there has to be a better way to tell your friend about the post.
In my opinion, it buries the actual discussion on the post in question under a stream of name-mentions.
Imagine if people on HN didn't email an article link to someone, but just @mentioned their name as a comment. With a ranking system like HN's, established comments would rise, but there would still be a ton of crud making it harder to, say, see new comments.
I think you're right and it just demonstrates a lack of good intuitive UX around content sharing. Instagram is especially bad in this regard, popular posts are just polluted with @ mentions.
Comments
I don't really understand the authors frustration. What's wrong with mentioning a friend in a comment or post so they'll see it?
I can't think of an instance where I've been annoyed that a friend has mentioned me in a comment. I'd prefer that to explicit sharing via some other mechanism anyway if they want to involve me in the discussion.
The post is referring to comments on popular posts (e.g. everything from IFLScience) that only contain someone's name in a comment.
The thing that is annoying, you see a post, that you are interested in. It has 36 comments. You open the comments to read what people have to say, then you have to sit there scrolling through a list of names. In the end there is a half dozen comments. Surely there has to be a better way to tell your friend about the post.
In my opinion, it buries the actual discussion on the post in question under a stream of name-mentions.
Imagine if people on HN didn't email an article link to someone, but just @mentioned their name as a comment. With a ranking system like HN's, established comments would rise, but there would still be a ton of crud making it harder to, say, see new comments.
I think you're right and it just demonstrates a lack of good intuitive UX around content sharing. Instagram is especially bad in this regard, popular posts are just polluted with @ mentions.