New Post Notices rollout on Stack Overflow

Question

New Post Notices have been launched network-wide. Please post all new feedback, bugs and feature requests to the new announcement post.

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As has been previously announced, we have been working for some time on a full refresh for post notices. I am happy to announce that all initial development work and testing has been completed, and that the new notices are now live on Stack Overflow.

During our initial launch period these will be shown to 50% of users (with the other 50% viewing notices as they have been with no change). After evaluating the impact of the notices during this period and making any warranted changes, our goal is to release these network-wide, and to completely remove the old notices from the system.

For our purposes, a 'post notice' includes any status banner shown on questions or answers: deleted, merged, migrated, closed, locked, protected, bountied, as well as any information notices that can be applied to posts by moderators.

The visual change in styling and position relative to content should immediately be obvious. The current notices use legacy styling and for the most part appear below the post (question or answer) content. The experience on mobile and desktop is different as the old layout is not flexible enough to be used on both. The new notices will all appear above post content, will feature a refreshed look and feel (using the Stacks design framework), and will work identically on both desktop and mobile.

_{A new post notice, being shown to users with the close/reopen privilege on a post closed as being opinion-based}

Beyond the look and feel changes, we have also rewritten the language for all of the different messages, with the goal of making them more friendly and results-driven, and taking into account the changing ways in which the notices have been used over the years. New messages language has been guided by our Content Style Guide, which itself is based on user insights and best practices. We hope that the language refresh will make it clearer to users what each respective notice is for, and if appropriate, to provide clearer instructions as to what they can do in order to improve the content that was flagged.

As Meg wrote in her blog post:

For people who ask questions today, if your question is closed, feedback that is directed toward you privately is shared publicly with anyone who views your question. Plus, the names of people who voted to close the question are highlighted publicly, too, setting them up for attack when they’re just trying to curate content according to the system.

Here’s what our holistic redesign of all post notices will prioritize:

• Delivering improved, private feedback to post authors
• Not putting users who curate content on the spot
• Giving actionable, understandable information for the vast majority of public viewers

The change affects all post notices, including mod notices, post locks, migration notices, and every single type of close notice. Many of these feature different messages that will be shown to the post owner, users with close/reopen privilege, and everyone else, with each message designed to expose the information that will be most helpful to the viewer. Another goal is also to provide more instructions and options for post owners when it comes to taking steps to edit the content of closed questions in order to allow for them to be reopened.

_{A duplicate closed notice being shown to the post owner.}

This is a far-reaching project and is also touching other related content like the wording used in the close menu giving guidance on off-topic reasons and the instructions being shown at the top of the review queue. Additionally, the notification language, user workflow, and options being provided to post owners on questions where there are active close as duplicate flags has been modified to give post owners more leeway in preemptively accepting or rejecting potential duplicate posts.

This new set of features and improvements is the first of a series of related projects aimed at improving the user experience on question close workflows and review queues for all users. Our goal is to better facilitate feedback and content curation for all people who code, whether they are new to programming and Stack Overflow, are seasoned moderators and technology experts, or fit anywhere in between.

_{Old and new "On Hold" notices}

General feedback is welcome on this post, as are feature-request and bug reports. We promise to read everything, and will do our best to engage with the community to address concerns that are raised.

FAQs

When will the changes roll out on SO?

The changes are live on SO right now

I still see the old notices and I would rather see the new ones

OR

I see the new notices and would rather keep the old notices

During our initial launch period the new post notices (and all related changes) are being shown to 50% of users. There is no easy way to switch between the group of users seeing old or new notices. If there are things about the new notices that you dislike, please let us know in a respectful and constructive way. We are happy to receive and take all feedback into consideration.

What are you looking for during the initial launch period?

The primary goal of the project is to improve the friendliness of the user experience when viewing post notices. This is a hard thing to measure. Some of the indicators that we will be using are the levels of engagement by users who see old vs new post notices and the rates of closed posts being reopened (specifically focusing on post edits and post reopen votes).

Can you please release a list of all the changes that were made to all notice language and functionality?

We are not going to do this right now:

• There are sooo many changes that were made, that any attempt to document all of these in a clear way will probably still end up being confusing (and it will be challenging to keep this up to date as changes are made during the initial launch period).
• We feel that in order to properly evaluate the changes to presentation, language and functionality, the changes need to be seen in the context of the site, by users who encounter them through normal site usage. Thus, we prefer to evaluate the success of changes by presenting them to users who will encounter and interact with them through organic site usage.

After Meg's blog post that first mentioned these changes, a post on MSE was made that solicited feedback on the preview given in the blog post. Were there any changes to this project that were made based on this feedback?

We read all of the feedback and found much of it to be very useful. Some of it was incorporated into this set of changes, and we hope to incorporate much more of it in a future project that builds on this one to address the underlying mechanics of the close->reopen workflows. Thanks for all the suggestions, and special shout out and thanks to Journeyman Geek for initiating and organizing the feedback post on MSE!

How long will the initial launch run for? When will this go live for everyone?

The initial launch is slated to tentatively run for 2-3 weeks. While we cannot commit to a final go-live date at this point, as there are many unknowns involved, we can say that we are interested in getting the final product out as soon as we can.

What is the average air speed of an unladen swallow?

What do you mean? An African or a European Swallow?

European, of course

Approximately 11 meters per second (40 km/h; 24 - 25 miles per hour)

Answer 1

status-declined

Clarify that duplicate questions are closed as well.

Duplicate questions are not just already having answers elsewhere already, they also have the "closed" status that means they're not accepting answers any more. The new post notice doesn't mention that anywhere, except in the view for close-voters and authors, and even then only in the last sentence. Similarly, it doesn't mention that it's still editable either.

The wording of the message "Some community members have associated your post with similar questions." suggests that it's a mere association, like a "see also these related questions".

Answer 2

feature-request status-completed

One of my questions is protected. This is what I see when I open it:

That is, I see the banner:

Highly active question. You have enough reputation to answer this question. The reputation requirement helps protect this question from spam and non-answer activity. Learn more.

1. I don't think it makes much sense to indicate to me, the OP, that I have enough reputation to answer my own question. While it is important to notify a OP that they cannot answer it, I think that indicating that they can does not add value.

2. Once you've seen this banner several times, it would be useful allowing to dismiss it or leave it on the footer. It takes important space when it is no longer relevant.

Answer 3

When a post is closed due to both being "unclear" and "too broad" close votes, show a custom message that covers both. Eg "too broad" could be due to the post being "unclear" about what the detailed problem is.

Answer 4

During our initial launch period the new post notices (and all related changes) are being shown to 50% of users. There is no easy way to switch between the group of users seeing old or new notices. If there are things about the new notices that you dislike, please let us know in a respectful and constructive way. We are happy to receive and take all feedback into consideration.

Over a dozen answers thus far have found an "old versus new" shortcoming, with one simply being grammatical or punctuation. Some users can rely on their socks (and multiple tabs) to make side by side comparisons, most users can not.

It's unfortunate that a small group of users (possibly > 10K, or at least the moderators) can't see both old and new (one above the other) with radio buttons beside each - that way if the new version is wrong in some way (not a suitable manner to present the older information) they can click the radio button next to the old version; indicating a failure of the newer version.

It's more difficult to say what you don't like about the new notices if you can't compare them directly with the older ones. Alternatively this question could show before and after examples for each instance.

If both old and new were intended to be identical I can see having "A / B" groups but when you're serving two different pills you end up providing the real thing to one group and a placebo to the other.

This could lead to one group commenting, flagging, reopening, etc. based on what they see while the other group must rely on information later found to be incomplete or deficient in some way.

It's unfortunate that "there is no easy way".

Generally one would use "A / B" to determine which group has a better result, or if there was no difference. Here you are asking group "B" to compare the new experience with how it used to be based on memory.

Group "A" ends up with no say in the matter and group "B" has nothing to compare to; while the moderators may not know which group the person is in, or if they do they still end up with additional deciphering and fluidly changing extra work. Much like flags dropped on edited posts, where different people see different versions of the same thing.

Answer 5

This is in regards to the OP being able to see who closed the question. Do we really want to do this? It gives people that might be upset that their question is closed a convenient outlet for misdirected hostility. If we want to be nice and welcoming we should apply that equally and hide this information from the OP unless they also have Close Vote privileges.

This will make the close voters lives easier as they will be a lot less likely to be targeted by revenge votes or rude/abusive comments. If the OP wants someone to badger, they can leave a generic comment or go to meta.

Answer 6

discussion

You guys are looking into updating the close reasons? Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.

I cannot tell you how many different ways I have asked for this in the past.

The close reasons are tightly coupled with the topicality of the sites, so it is certainly a tough subject to approach. They are also closely related to welcoming, and so any improvement there will be a drastic increase in community health.

The main issue with the current set of close reasons is that they didn't scale well. While they worked well enough at first, the sheer volume of question types that have been generated did not match the existing set of close reasons.

There needs to be more close reasons.

Simply tweaking the wording will make some small progress, but expanding the list will have a much greater impact. Close reasons with multiple sentences are not only confusing to many users, but also leave the door open to interpretation which causes strife in the community.

If there are to be multiple sentences in a close reason, then only the first should define the closure; the rest could still be used for help material, but should not be used for clarification.

Limit close reasons to one closure type.

Allowing close reasons to cast a net whereby they close multiple types of questions at once creates unease and friction. New users are unsure what exact aspect they violated, and veterans will argue over which aspect of the net was invalid for use.

Answer 7

bug status-bydesign (As pointed out in the comments, the CW note was added through a mod notice)

1. Missing "Locked" post notice for the question.
2. Community Wiki notice appears to apply to just the question, when the question isn't a Community Wiki.
3. Community Wiki notice is intended to apply just to the answers, although using the term "Community Wiki" is confusing.

For locked questions which are not closed and have a "Community Wiki" notice (search; specific example), the question post notice erroneously indicates that the question itself is a Community Wiki instead of indicating that it's actually locked:

The CW notice is supposed to indicate the answers are intended to be edited, not the question.

The CW notice is intended to let users know that the answers can be edited, not that the question can be edited. There are several issues with the new implementation.

• The notice isn't a post notice, it's a page notice. For consistency, it needs to not be inside the question content. It should be placed at the top of the page, above the question title, or some other location to indicate it applies to the entire page, not just to the question.

  • The prior placement of the notice below the question content and spanning the entire width of the vote area and Q&A content area made it more clear that the notice applied to the answers, rather than the question.

• Calling locked questions "community wiki" is confusing. If not being called "locked" (which is what it is), then this state should be called something other than "community wiki". For posts on Stack Exchange, "community wiki" has a very specific meaning: the specific answer or question is a community wiki on which the author (or moderator) has explicitly invited much wider participation in editing the content, which includes allowing users with much lower reputation, 100 on non-beta sites, free editing of those posts.
  Using "community wiki" for something significantly different than the existing definition makes it unclear what the term means.

• Locked questions are, well, locked. They can't be edited. Calling the "post" (i.e. the question) a community wiki is the opposite of the question's actual state (i.e. locked).

While the effect of locking a question might be somewhat like having the question and answers turned into a community wiki, the actual effect is significantly different.

Answer 8

bug? (And maybe it was always like this?)

status-bydesign

I don't see how you can "provide detailed answers" if the question is "not currently accepting answers". If a question is closed, don't show the first ("insufficient explanation") banner—or maybe only show it to people who have an answer on the post:

Want to improve this post? Provide detailed answers to this question, including citations and an explanation of why your answer is correct. Answers without enough detail may be edited or deleted.

Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers. Learn more.

(Screenshot; example question: Why is the Android emulator so slow? How can we speed up the Android emulator?)

Answer 9

feature-request status-declined

When a post is locked, it's not obvious that it's locked, or that you can't interact with the question, except by editing. Take this SO question

The new bar no longer says the word "locked" and it de-emphasizes that you cannot answer it.

The bottom still says

comments disabled on deleted / locked posts / reviews

The problem I have here is that we're no longer using consistent terminology. This is going to confuse new users who are going to wonder where they were told it was locked.

Note: While this is similar to this request, I'm focused solely on consistent terminology here, not the other issues raised.

Answer 10

bug status-completed

Both the "This post is hidden" and "Locked" notices are missing on questions deleted as spam or rude/abusive (example question):

The notices are, however, not missing from answers (example answer):

Answer 11

feature-requeststatus-planned

The new post notices still point to the current help center articles. This reads confusing as different terminology is used there.

Is a rewrite for the help center also scheduled when this rolls out any further?

Answer 12

bug status-bydesign

I was looking at different closed questions, and came across this one: "Thinking in AngularJS" if I have a jQuery background?

It was closed as "Needs more focus" (which appears to be a legacy close reason which is the new name for the "Too broad" close reason). There are however no names and timestamp of those who closed this post and when. That information is available in the post timeline.

Edit: on mobile I see this view:

Answer 13

discussion

Closing a question doesn't just affect the question's author. It also affects anyone who wishes to answer the question or edit it to make it openable. I can foresee a lot of "I don't see why this question needs to be more focused" types of comments from users who would like a question to be open and are not able to see the detailed reason why a question was closed.

Answer 14

On questions which were previously called protected questions I can now see two notice messages. e.g. Why shouldn't I use mysql_* functions in PHP?

Why do I see both notices?
Why do I see them when I only view the question? It is the first thing I see when I open the question. Now assuming I am a low reputation user whose question was closed as duplicate of canonical post and is redirected to a protected question, the most prominent information I see is asking me to provide a detailed answer! The real content of the Q&A is pushed down as if it was less important.

Why can't this first message be shown where the answer button is. The answering functionality is on the very bottom of the page, where after carefully reading through all the answers I have already forgotten about the useful notice I read at the top. That is a poor UX. Can we move this information to the bottom as well? Strangely enough when I log out, I can see this information on the bottom where the answer box would normally be located as well as on top of the question.

Another point, which was also raised in SOCVR, is in regards to the reputation needed to answer. The second message tells me how much reputation I have got, and that I can answer the question. No offense, but this message makes no sense to me. I know my reputation! I know I can answer it, because I have the answer box at the bottom. At which point does this message become ridiculous? What about Jon Skeet? "Since you have 1,140,486 reputation, you can answer this question."

The site just says "Since you are Jon Skeet, you can answer this question" - Machavity

Answer 15

status-completed

Typo/grammar/boolean logic:

It's seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries, and more. This question is likely to lead to opinion-based answers.

I don't think I've ever seen a question asking for books, tools, software libraries and more. I want it all and I want it now?

Should be changed to:

It's seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries or other off-site resources. This question is likely to lead to opinion-based answers.

Or you could have kept the text as it was...

Because the main reason why we don't allow these questions is not the risk of opinion-based answers - "where can I find MSDN" is a very specific question with only one possible correct answer. Rather, it is the risk of building a site where some answers are nothing but dead links.

Answer 16

feature-request status-completed

The new text "Some community members have associated this/your post with similar questions." sounds a bit funny when the OP himself voted to close or agreed with the closure. Please special-case this for self-closure or closures by the Community user.

An example by myself would be Ways of setting/getting a textNode's value, although that's quite old and I'm not sure by which process I closed it. (And also I'm only seeing the "private feedback"). I couldn't find any other example to verify the latest behaviour.

Answer 17

feature-request status-completed

The current migration notice looks like this:

This doesn't mean the question can necessarily be answered. It could be a duplicate.

I think it should be:

Answer 18

bug status-bydesign

This question is marked as a duplicate of a question which is closed.

The post notice reads:

This question already has answers here:

Closed 7 years ago.

Screenshot:

Not sure if this is due to the way duplicates used to be edited into the post, or because the duplicate itself was closed, but it was pretty confusing to see.

Answer 19

bug status-completed

I just noticed on this question in the protected banner there are two asterisks. Is this a bug related to markdown bold highlighting?

Answer 20

status-completed Update to functionality: MigratedFrom notices are now hidden after 60 days from migration (you can still see the migration history in the post timeline). This does not apply to the MiratedTo and MigrationRejection notices, which will continue to be shown as normal.

feature-request

The notice indicating that a question was migrated from somewhere else should be removed after a fixed period of time.

After seven years, there is no need to highlight prominently that the question originated on a different site.

See Hide notice for migrated questions after 30 days and Remove migration notices from destination post.

Answer 21

bug status-completed

This is possibly a bug where an answer deleted on April 2019 is shown as deleted 26 months ago.

Question - How to assert that some String contains at least one value from the List <String>?

Link to answer - https://stackoverflow.com/a/55550091/4405757

Answer 22

bug status-completed

Update: after fix, the public banner now looks like this:

---

The public duplicate banner looks like this:

_source

Shouldn't the timestamp be below the duplicate link in a <sub>, like:

This question already has an answer here:

How to access the correct this inside a callback?

_{Closed 1 hour ago}

That way, the sentence would make more sense.

Answer 23

bug status-declined

This is related to the previous bug report:
https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/337282

On old questions which were closed as "exact duplicate", such as this one, we can see almost empty banner:

I understand that the idea is to display both banners for the time being, but I think the contents of the new banner should be adjusted.

Answer 24

1. On this post 1: "Grep 'binary file matches'. How to get normal grep output? [duplicate]" I am seeing this notice

2. This post 2: How to grep a text file which contains some binary data? (is linked to in the notice)

So post 1 is closed as duplicate? Post 2 is not a duplicate and not closed. Post 1 refers to post 2. All good here.

What is not good:

• The text "Closed 2 years ago" can be read to refer to post 2 (the post that is being linked to). Actually, at first glance, I assumed this.
• There is not a clear enough indication which should be the preferred question. As a reader I am referred to another question (with answers). Yes, but post 1 has answers too. So, I might ignore the notice, upvote the question and upvote one of the answers. It doesn't help to reduce the duplicates.
• I came via Google. Why am I even seeing post 1 and not post 2?
• Why are closed questions even still visible? I never understood that.
• Why can I still upvote this question? It is closed as duplicate.
• The information "Closed as duplicate" should be integrated into the text "Closed 2 years ago". The information [duplicate] is in the title but that is visually too far away from the information in blue.
• What is the action that is expected of me to be helpful?
• Where is the information about the close reasons (in general)?
• What is the process for closing / deleting / marking as duplicate etc.?

I am sure this information is documented somewhere. It is difficult to find. Until this day the close reasons are not entirely clear to me. Duplicate is obvious. "Too broad" etc. is - at least for me - not yet obvious enough.

To really be helpful in this rollout I would like to see a before / after slideshow or something. Right now, it is just confusing. I can't easily assess the change if I don't know what was changed. Maybe the upvoting of post 1 is currently only possible because I am in this testgroup and data is being collected what my actions are. Maybe I am in the group who sees the "old" behavior.

What are you trying to achieve?

• reduce the amount of duplicate (and other "unwanted") questions?
• actually have the "unwanted" questions closed or deleted and no longer visible? Or at least not upvotable?

What I like about this change:

• Listing the other questions with number of answers
• The blue banner (can't exactly say why)

What I would like to see:

general:

• A nice symbol and / or individual color coding for the main close reasons.
• Very clear explanations for close / delete / downvote reasons and a link to this, e.g. as in "I downvoted because" project. "Unclear" or "too broad" is very vague for me and can be due to a number of reasons. I would rather sacrifice "niceness" for clarity but they are not mutually exclusive and you can do both.

For "real" duplicates that have gone through a process and been identified as duplicates (which is the case here):

• removal of the duplicate (and redirect to preferred question)

For edge cases, (where there are good answers on both etc.)

• clear indication which is the canonical post
• when I search, I do not want to see the duplicate. I want to see the preferred question (e.g. redirect)
• eventually, merging of the 2 questions and removal of the duplicates

---

I would also like to point out: for many people on meta, mods, staff etc. the workflow / procedure for closing / deleting etc. and also the reasons for closing / deleting / flagging etc. seems to be clear. For me it is not (entirely). I read the help center (a while ago), I regularly use SO, and occasionally read on meta. I want to be helpful, but I am afraid the essence of SO is not yet flowing through my veins.

Answer 25

feature-request

In the old box for alerts, the background colour ws set to a light yellow. This meant that the contrast, especially for blue-coloured hyperlinks, was good and clear. Maybe it's just me, but I feel that the current light-blue colour scheme makes it harder to read hyperlinks, which is particularly significant in the case where the hyperlink contains an entire question title (because e.g. it is the link to a duplicate question). This creates unnecessary strain on my eyes, IMO.

My suggestion is to change the colour back to yellow. Either that, or adjust the background colour such that it is lighter and the colour of the hyperlinks are darker, although it seems the blue was chosen specifically to fit the colour scheme elsewhere (such as in tag backgrounds), so there could be a standardisation issue there. Changing to yellow seems the best decision to me.

Example image from a question on Math SE:

Answer 26

bug status-completed

"Highly active question" links to inaccurate help page (protect questions vs. answer protected questions)

This is mostly fixed with TheBlackCat's "Since you have more than Y reputation, you can answer the question. ..." proposal which is marked as status-completed, so I'll address only the "Learn more" part: It links to the Protect questions help section about protecting questions, not answering protected questions, which states that 15k rep is required:

This was confusing to me, since it gave me the impression that answering was a moderator privilege. With "Since you have more than Y reputation, ...", this is less relevant, but for anyone who actually clicks "Learn more", I suggest one of the following things:

• Either, link to the Remove new user restrictions help section instead:

  

• Or, add to the Protect questions help section that

  • Answering protected questions is unlocked at 10 reputation. Learn more.

since it's not immediately clear that this isn't a moderator privilege.

(Originally reported here, then moved to this thread.)

Answer 27

feature-request status-declined

When I come to a question, I'm interested in the question itself. Out of habit, my eyes automatically position themselves to be where the post's body will be, however, now I'm greeted with:

or

Suggestion: Move all notices beneath the post.

Afterthought: If you must keep the notices in the post then try the following: If the post is closed and the person viewing the post is the OP of the question then show it in the post's body, otherwise show it beneath the post.

Answer 28

bug status-completed

I just revisited one of my first ever answers here, which I deleted long time ago. On mobile version there is no banner no textual information that the post is deleted.

On desktop version there is a blue banner saying:

This post is hidden. This post was deleted 6 years ago by the post author. Learn more.

Answer 29

bug

On this question I can see the same text twice.

To be pedantic, I can actually see the same message 3 times. "Update the question so it's on-topic for Stack Overflow." and "Edit the question so it is on-topic for Stack Overflow." have the same meaning.

Answer 30

supportdiscussion

It's already been mentioned that "Viewable by the post author and users with the close/reopen votes privilege" is unclear, but what I am actually curious about:

How many different views are there on the new post notices?

Apparently users without the privilege to vote on the closure do see a somewhat different messages, but what does the author see? The message currently seems to suggest that the author gets the same view as the close voters, but that would be quite unhelpful imo.

As a power user, the information I'm primarily interested in is

• the question is closed
• for what reason (and what duplicate are linked)
• chosen by whom
• how long ago

Please make the layout so that all these bits are readily recognisable, and not distracted by more prominent (bolded) features or linebreaks.

As an author of a closed post, I need the same information but much more explanation and actionable items on that:

• What does it mean for a question to be closed/put on hold? (no answers for now, needs editing)
• What is wrong with my question (and why does that make it hard to answer/a bad fit for SO)?
• Who is responsible for the close decision (the community, not an automated process or moderator staff)
• What can I do to improve, and how does the further process look like?

Please share some screenshots of the experience an author gets as well.

Update: I can share a message from one of my closed questions:

Also it appears that in the duplicate-question message, the sentence is change from "this post" to "your post", but otherwise it looks the same.