I personally find that Flarum feature spectacularly confusing. We already have
- @name mentions – of a person
- quotes – of a post
So this would add a third, weirdo hybrid type
- @person + post_id (but not quoted!) combo mentions
… with its own arcane syntax. I think you’d end up confusing people even more than they already are – what’s this junk in my reply area, and why it is here, and what does it mean?
At least with a quote you see the other person’s words, and with a name mention you see their name, these things are clear and well-understood, you have a name, you say words to me. But as a combo hybrid it’s just.. a mish-mash of metadata.
If anything we could make the @name mention pop up that person’s last post in this topic when clicked. That seems reasonable, it’s not a bad suggestion. So if I said @erlend_sh your last post was crap! you could click that and see your last post in this topic. It’s a reasonable expectation, if you have posted in the topic, anyway. If I am mentioning you I’m probably talking to you about the last thing you posted here.
But I think having it target the person and explicitly the number of their post – without quoting it – is highly bizarre. I don’t know that is something that should be encouraged. We want people to quote. Reference a name. Reference specific words. Don’t make people dig up post numbers which are meaningless.