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When I type a reply to a comment on Stack Overflow for a specific user and I start typing his name, why don't I get his actual name in the tooltip, but instead his name with spaces stripped out?

So a user called SomeName MiddleName AndLastName made a comment.

Now I start to reply to him: @SomeN, and I get a tooltip with @SomeNameMiddleNameAndLastName

For some names it looks kinda weird without spaces :-)

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2 Answers 2

up vote 1 down vote accepted

The space is used as delimiter for the @-reference; this means that if you write "@Longname with spaces," the notification would be sent to a user with a username matching "Longname" that commented before you, including the user using "Longname with spaces" as username.
In your case, if I write "@Erik Dekker" in a comment, the notification would be for any user with a username matching "Erik"; supposing that Erik commented after you, I would notify him, not you. To avoid ambiguity, the autocomplete suggest "ErikDekker," which is how your username is transformed when finding the user to whom the message is directed.

If the space were not used as delimiter, when you would write a comment similar to the following one the system would try to notify a user whose username is the full message.

@kiamlaluno I have already tried as you suggested.

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You are kiamlaluno, will the user 'kiam laluno' also receive notifications send to @kiamlaluno? Or is the name without spaces always unique? –  Erik Dekker Nov 29 '11 at 14:01
As far as I know, "kiam laluno" would receive notifications for @kiamlaluno too. The notification is sent to the user who last commented, for what I can remember. If I and "kiam laluno" commented, but I am the last one to comment, it should be just me to be notified. –  kiamlaluno Nov 29 '11 at 14:29
kiam laluno will work, but not because the space gets stripped. It works because there are more than three letters after @ which match the name; the laluno word is ignored. @ki amlaluno will not work, because ki is too short. –  Kevin Vermeer Nov 29 '11 at 15:35
@Eri kDekkerWillWorkBecauseEriMatches. The second word never matters. It's usually OK to use @Erik Dekker because none of the other Eriks will have posted between the two. @ErikDekker, on the other hand, always works. –  Kevin Vermeer Nov 29 '11 at 15:40
@KevinVermeer Erik was making the example of another user using "kiam laluno" as username, and asked if "kiamlaluno" would work for me and that user. –  kiamlaluno Nov 29 '11 at 16:07

The notification feature requires spaces to be removed from the @ clause.

Hence, they are.

If they are not, it's going to be more confusing, I'd guess. You see spaces in the tooltip, but when you click it the spaces disappear.

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