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Would it be possible for Stack Exchange to reserve top bar announcements for things that are actually important to the network, and not use them to advertise things like the podcast? We've got the blog headlines showing up on the right anyway, so replicating one in the top bar isn't all that helpful, and I at least find it annoying.

At the least, please rig it so that once I close it on one site, I don't see it on every other site I visit.

Server Fault top bar with podcast announcement

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  • 72
    @Zymus - I actually think that the top bar announcement spot can be valuable, as long as it's reserved for things that every user actually needs to know (for instance: impending downtime for the site). And I know that adding user settings is a lot of effort, so I'm advocating instead for limited use of the feature.
    – Michael Kohne
    Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 19:36
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    I'd trade this banner with the possibility to upvote this twice.
    – Laf
    Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 19:44
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    Dismiss the “Meet The Overflow” and Podcast Episode banners network-wide
    – pkamb
    Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 20:51
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    dismissing it doesn't stop it from showing up again next week with the next issue of the podcast.
    – Kevin B
    Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 20:55
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    Every banner that people don't believe to be useful only contributes further to their Banner Blindness and makes your banners less likely to be read in the future. Please please please heed this FR.
    – scohe001
    Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 21:18
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    These have been especially irksome of late. I'm growing tired of the "Let's talk about anything except Monica" podcast and blog announcements.
    – J.R. means 'Just Reinstate'
    Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 5:31
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    I was especially surprised to see this announcement on math.SE. A podcast about React and Git isn't likely to interest people on the math stackexchange.
    – Jack M
    Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 9:56
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    This is the exact reason why I and some others initially missed the question score adjustment announcement banner because the banner has also been showcasing a bunch of podcasts.
    – Troyen
    Commented Nov 22, 2019 at 22:10
  • 1
    @pkamb looks like they do it randomly, which is even worse. :/
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Oct 1, 2020 at 7:51

3 Answers 3

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+250

The whole point of podcasts is that you can subscribe to them. Please, SE, assume that everyone who wants to listen to your podcast has already subscribed, and stop advertising it with banners.

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    What about new users? Do they know that the company issues podcasts? Where do they see that information on Stack Overflow? (Just playing advocate)
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Dec 18, 2019 at 7:49
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    @Mari-LouA Once we figure out the intended audience for the podcast we can figure out how best to promote it. Pretty sure it's not for regular SE users though. From what I can tell it's basically ads for other companies.
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Dec 18, 2019 at 8:23
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    Another one today. On each site. Independently. Arghareghargharghargharghargha
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Jan 7, 2020 at 16:29
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit By the way, there is a useful userscript at StackApps to ban the banless banner.
    – Ollie
    Commented Sep 30, 2020 at 21:50
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    @Mari-LouA They see it in the Overflow Blog sidebar, where the info is usually displayed. We don't need banners for that.
    – Ollie
    Commented Oct 1, 2020 at 18:41
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I think a good solution for this would be adding a checkbox in the user profile settings to disable podcast notifications:

mockup

It could also be a separate section allowing users to select which notifications they deem "non-essential".

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    I'm very suspicious of making things a preference. Given that the podcast is also announced in the Blog sidebar, AND that I could see the topbar being used for legitimate announcements ('Impending downtime!'), I'd much rather see the bar simply restricted to real uses, rather than letting people turn it off.
    – Michael Kohne
    Commented Nov 22, 2019 at 17:48
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    @MichaelKohne True, but the idea is that users can restrict anything that they believe irrelevant. For other examples, the holiday hat thing and the yearly survey and results generally get notifications, and I'm sure some users would rather not be bothered by one or all of those. To avoid lots of specific options, you could also force notifications to have a category and allow disabling by that.
    – David Starkey
    Commented Nov 22, 2019 at 18:22
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    That's fine as far as it goes, but I'd argue that the hats are one more thing that should just be in the blog feed, and NOT put into the notifications. I'm arguing that notifications shouldn't need to be turned off because they should ONLY be used for stuff that's actually important. Everything else should go on the blog.
    – Michael Kohne
    Commented Nov 22, 2019 at 19:41
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    @MichaelKohne That's the problem, who gets to decide what is "actually important"? Some users might think the annual survey is a nuisance while others think it's important. If you want to say only impending downtime should get a banner that's fine, but others might think topics outside the availability of the site are also important.
    – David Starkey
    Commented Nov 22, 2019 at 21:03
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    This would take precious development time, whereas instituting a policy of not misusing the announcement banner does not, and it covers more than just the podcast too.
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Dec 18, 2019 at 2:04
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    @curiousdannii If you trust the powers that be to make the decision on what is and is not relevant to the user-base, then sure.
    – David Starkey
    Commented Dec 18, 2019 at 14:46
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    IMO there is an error in this answer: it says "disable" where it should say "enable".
    – Peter Taylor
    Commented Dec 18, 2019 at 15:26
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    This implies that receiving podcast notifications should be the default. It shouldn't.
    – user142148
    Commented Jan 8, 2020 at 8:52
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    @PeterTaylor Fixed
    – David Starkey
    Commented Jan 8, 2020 at 16:56
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I couldn't agree more with this!

The banner seems to be only reporting things that are not of great importance - it didn't show the highlighter change, for example, but it's shown a lot of podcasts.

For those who hate clicking on each site to dismiss the banners, there is a userscript by Glorfindel over at Stack Apps that will dismiss the banners network-wide with a one-site-click, for those who have that problem (per Adam Lear's answer here, this is already possible...but it isn't working for me).

I don't think a user preference for turning it on or off is necessary, as the info usually shows up in the Overflow Blog sidebar.

In the meantime, yes, this should be implemented. I do not want to know about every week's podcast; if I did, I'd subscribe to it.

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