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Nowadays every single time I visit a trilogy website or area51 I'm shown that stupid notification bar that most of the time notifies me about something I don't really care about, and it won't go away until I click "X".

An option to optionally turn off the favorite changes notifications has already been proposed, but I want to propose something slightly different that should be implemented in addition to the opt-out:

  • Favorite notifications should appear only through the envelope (it lights up, then you click it and see the changes). This of course only if the user hasn't opted out.
  • If technically possible, find a way to stop making the "First time here?" notification if a user has already visited another stackexchange / trilogy website before.
  • Last but not least, in area51 get rid of all the notifications ("X new questions", "X new comments", etc etc) and move everything to the envelope.

The notification bar feels very "in your face" and I think it should be rarely used; only for very important information.

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    This is counter to what others what...for example I don't want the envelope lighting up every 15 minutes, there should be a third option of not being notified of favorite changes altogether, or when you click on the star it's "off", "favorite", "favorite with notifications". I agree neither of these are ideal, but being able to disable both would be welcomed. Jun 20, 2010 at 12:42
  • @Nick: I agree; if the favorite turn off option is ever implemented then it will stop lighting up the envelope. My suggestion was for before the implementation of such a feature, and for the ones who prefer to keep it off. Jun 20, 2010 at 13:10
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    @Nick: I have to totally agree about favorites. The notifications feature is becoming the boy who cried favorite, and it is severely damaging the value of notifications. I would propose that favorites be indicated in another way...say throw a star next to the envelope, and light the star up if your favorites change. I don't want my envelope changing when I get favorite updates, nor do I want a notification.
    – jrista
    Jul 4, 2010 at 3:38
  • It would be neat if we could configure which notifications get to trigger the notifications bar. E.g. i.e I don't want the notification bar for a favorite change, but I do want it if I get an answer to a question. Perhaps list all the events that can use the notification bar, and allow users to check and uncheck which to turn on and off. Aug 27, 2010 at 15:50
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    @Jeff: If you're going to set it to [status-declined] at least leave a comment with an short explanation. It's frustrating for us users when we go to the effort of giving feedback and the response from you can be summed up as 'pfft'. I get that some suggestions are just bad ideas/have unwanted impacts/are controversial/etc, and that's fine, just leave a comment explaining that. I know meta is the unwanted child, but that doesn't mean you can leave it unloved ; )
    – Dhaust
    Sep 7, 2010 at 3:35
  • Maybe you want to check my related request: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/181096/… May 26, 2013 at 17:43

2 Answers 2

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I generally don't like "three requests in one", particularly when they are all only tangentially related, and the whole question is dangerously close to a rant.

I disagree with two of these and think one might be implemented.

Therefore, I have no choice but mark the whole thing [status-declined].

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I must be in a minority here, because I actually like being notified of all these changes. And especially favourite changes. To be honest, before that came along, I didn't really see what use favourites were - just another list of bookmarks?

And it's not as in-your-face as a modal dialog - which is what you still get on lots of sites...

I do agree about the first-time-here message, which I tend to just kill indiscriminately.

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