Oh? I've seen him respond to that many times in the past...assumed he had some hook for those.

No, he just reads HN like we do

Sometimes users email him links to them

I stopped doing that after one guy said “why shouldn’t I use @dang when you’ll just send an email for me”

If you want dang to see your comment and reply (and remember it’s dang/tomhow now), email a link to your comment to the mods using the footer contact link along with a note

The Algolia-linkin’ king ain’t doing a Regex->notification thing, OK! Thank you

Maybe just does a search for it on some discussions here and finds them that way.

Correlation vs causation?

Well, maybe.

First thought is about driving a discussion rather than putting on a performance, yes? then second thought I see would be performative, thanks for the call out and the very important tip I will not forget!