Always show chat and blog link in the top bar

Question

It's been addressed before, the "chat" link which either shows up or doesn't show up in the top bar is confusing. (hardly surprising)

I suggest the following:

• Always show the "chat" link.
• Always show the "blog" link (when the SE site has a blog).
• Highlight the blog link instead of putting "new" in front of it when there is a new blog post.

Result:

• No more "shifting" GUI parts. (If this were to be a reason for the current design, ironically it does shift now due to the "new" icon.)
• It's always visible whether or not a site has a blog.
• Users aren't surprised. When they use the link once, they can always find it again.

As a side note: the "new" icon in front of the bottom "blog" link doesn't disappear along with the one in the top-bar after clicking on the link.

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To prevent any further "but, you can find the link in so many other places"-answers:

It's not an issue whether it's hard to find. The issue is it's inconsistent and confusing. I learned I was able to find it there, and afterwards it's no longer there ... that's the problem.

Answer 1

I really don't think this is necessary.

Chat is not hard to find. It's always at http://chat.<sitename>.com And there's plenty of other links to it.

As Jeff himself says:

You can also find chat links, at least on any meta, on every question page in the sidebar:

Note that "4 people chatting" is a link to the rooms page, whereas the rooms are.. links to the individual rooms.

And it's at the bottom, as Reno points out:

You will find it on the footer navigation bar thingy.

---- On Chrome/Firefox - hit Ctrl + End to go to the bottom.