If mentioning dang does work, why didn’t it work for the forty-five minutes prior to my reply, and then work five minutes after?
I’ve emailed the mods tens of times over the years to point out a thread that has a correction, or that I think dang may want to reply to, without saying that I’ve done so. Did I do so this time? (Y/N)
Assigning meaning to the timing is inappropriate, as it disregards the possibility of coincidence (he found the thread organically), unstated actions (someone emailed the mods), and/or human distraction (he was at lunch) by the however-notified dang.
I also view it as impolite to try using @dang to burden all mod duties onto one person rather than to a team of mods. Whether it works or not, it’s evidence of site users setting dang up in their minds as a single point of failure – either because they think it’s the only way, or for the convenience of not having to write a two sentence email to the mod team. That irks me, and so I occasionally post a reminder about the contact form, phrased to allow for the cases where the @ is just a learned behavior and they just don’t know about the contact link in the footer yet.
