On WMF wikis there are thousands of users, so the username auto-complete is not particularly useful, especially when only a few letters have been typed. Most accounts are inactive on that particular wiki, or blocked spam accounts.
I suggest we filter out more accounts from the results as allowed by the API. This will not prevent you from mentioning these users, it will just not suggest them if they are not already on the page (usernames already on the page are //always// searched).
* `auwitheditsonly` - Only lists users who have made edits (to any namespace)
* `auactiveusers` - Only list users active in the last 30 days [1]
* Only start searching once more letters have been typed. Currently we start searching the API even if only one letter is typed.
-- //Note: Some thought is required about the workflow here. It will not be true on all IMEs that as the user starts typing '@username', the characters '@us...' are immediately available to us. Sometimes the IME will only actually start inserting text into the document when the user has completed their word. At the very least, we may need an alternative affordance so that users of such IMEs have a way to activate the search. Via @Dchan //
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1. need to check how "active" is defined