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.