That works when the person replied to is not still active but doesn’t always apply if they are still in the topic… there is a delay in the system making the notification and if the response has already been accessed, no notification is given thus the confusion can arise.
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I learned very quickly that replying to a post was pointless, so I do as @David_Spardo and many others do: quote the bit I’m responding to.
It can get a bit upper-sixth-essay-like, though!
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But it does show in the post created the avatar of the person replied to.
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not immediately AM
Did you see what I did there @Ancient_Mariner ? to prove that isn’t so. 
The avatar only appears if someone else posts in between.
If the consensus of current posters is for it to change, then raise a topic under Forum Support so that it can be looked at again. Simples!
Not for me, I am happy the way it is, now I know how it works, and what I have to do for clarity. 
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And for me too and I voted that way IIRC when the subject was last raised some time ago.
That of course is true but when someone makes a rather long post with many factions to it, it can still be confusing.
Quoting as @David_Spardo did or tagging the user (as David also did with @) generally removes any doubt as to what is being addressed and to whom 
Back on topic…
Which is the correct way to do it.
A very reasonable interpretation.
Yes and no - as with most things in life it’s the small print that gets you.
I was pretty certain that Discourse thinks that you are doing so if you use the blue Reply button at the end of the thread, it looks that it definitely does so if you use the grey Reply link on a post higher up & using that will send an email reply as well.
One difficulty with the automatic assumption that a post is in reply to the previous one is that someone can come along and sneak a new post on the end of the thread while you are typing - for instance, Graham managed to add the post with the video link above, but I might have thought I was responding to his previous post.
So it’s always best to be indicate when you want to reply to a specific point - either by making it clear in your text, or by using the “quote” function (the latter is best because it will insert links back to the original post).
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It seems that your avatar appears when I WRITE a reply , but then disappears on posting. 
Yes, and you can see that the system considers your post a reply to mine from in the way it shows it to me
Which “Reply” button did you use?
The arrow, rather than the blue box of a general reply.
And for the comment above?
Both the same with the’reply to’ arrow, but here I’ve used the blue general reply and quoted you (mildly awkward sometimes on the phone, as I have been all afternoon).
Looking at the Discourse forums the two “reply” buttons are differentiated as “Reply to user” (gray) and “Reply to thread” (blue) - which is pretty close to everyone’s interpretation of their behaviour - what I’m slightly uncertain of is whether Discourse considers a “reply to thread” to also to be a reply to the last post in the thread. At times I’ve been convinced that it does but maybe I’ve made wrong assumptions about which button people have used.
Either way, it is best to explicitly include the context, if replying to or commenting on a specific point.
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I shall add the person’s name to anything I post, unless I’m posting a quote… and hopefully that will be clear to all… over and out… @billybutcher
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I’ve recently started doing what @Stella mentions there!
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well @AngelaR at least 2 of us are on the same wavelength… 
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Well that was an interesting 30 plus posts on a thread all about what has gone wrong with the NHS that has turned into all about how to reply on this or any thread.
That is what I call massive thread drift.
I am now pressing the blue arrow displayed at rhe end of rhis thread so it is an observational comment and not a reply to a particular poster.
I stand corrected if that is not correct
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I think you should sit, otherwise your legs will get tired.
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