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Back in September last year, Stack Exchange implemented Post Notices (a.k.a. banners or "moderator comments").

They were in a response to requests from Skeptics.SE, and were originally expected to be mainly useful for Skeptics.SE. Certainly, they have been popular at Skeptics.SE, now tagging around 6% of answers!

However, they have been adopted by other sites, such as UX.SE.

Now, we have had follow-up requests, asking for the appearance of the post notices to change - in particular, their current location.

  • On Skeptics, there is strong support for the banner on an answer to appear above the answer. The argument is that such a caveat should be understood before a reader digests an answer, and also to avoid it being completely overlooked.

  • (I suggested a middle-ground compromise, in case the above option did not meet general approval. It did not get a lot of support from Skeptics.SE, but did inspire a script to prototype its appearance.)

  • Meanwhile, over an UX, there is a milder suggestion that has also seen strong support: that the notices be moved above the comments, closer to the answer.

Please move the post notices above the answer, or failing that, please adopt one of the other suggestions.

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  • 3
    +1, I've always wondered why the notices were not at the top.
    – Josh Darnell
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:01
  • 10
    Yeah, it usually looks very out of place where it appears now. Hard to tell if it applies to the answer below or above. +1.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:04
  • @jadarnel27: It's not put at the top because (when added to the question text at the top, which is the way we used to do it) it takes up summary space; every question on the "Top Questions" page would say "This question is here for historical reasons, but it is not on-topic." Not a very good effect. In addition, Google places more weight on text at the top of a page. In short, it's not quite that simple.
    – user102937
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:10
  • @Robert, is "Best Of" the same as "Greatest Hits"? This request is for post-notices on answers not questions, which I believe addresses your first concern.
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:15
  • Well, post notices on answers are broken (the wording is the same for questions), and the only answer I've actually seen a post notice on is Bobince's legendary answer to the Parse Html with Regex question. Moving answer post notices to the top makes no sense to me; it divorces such notices from the answer. I would support moving such notices to the top of the answer.
    – user102937
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:21
  • @RobertHarvey I think he means moving answer post notices to right above the answer, not to the top of the entire page.
    – Josh Darnell
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:22
  • @jadarnel27: That's not what his last paragraph says.
    – user102937
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:23
  • @RobertHarvey: Apologies for the silly mix-up. I meant above the answer. Corrected.
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:24
  • @RobertHarvey The post notices can be on either Questions or Answers. I am pretty sure Oddthinking meant "Right above the post"
    – Sklivvz
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:26
  • Yeah, I get that. If it can be done without breaking Google SEO, I'm all for it.
    – user102937
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:27
  • @RobertHarvey - that's true for notices on Questions but not notices on Answers which is what this question is about.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:28
  • There are literally hundreds of examples of answers with post notices here (link also appears in the question).
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:28
  • On Skeptics... Does anyone find that surprising at all? :P
    – user102937
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:30
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    @RobertHarvey Re "it takes up summary space" - Wouldn't that just be in the case of the old-style, "historical significance" notes within a post? I wouldn't think the text would show in the summary when using the actual "add notice" functionality.
    – Josh Darnell
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:30
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    Put this on the list of reasons for making special questions (old, with post notices, etc) look visually dissimilar than others.
    – user1228
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 18:15

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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The UX suggestion was implemented.

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Just to repeat the rationale from my original request on meta.skeptics.SE:

It’s not only so that the notice is seen before reading the answer, it’s so that the notice is seen at all. At the moment, it is in practice all too easy to overlook a notice completely. This couldn’t necessarily be anticipated beforehand (although some have argue this from the beginning) but now that we’ve had some time to evaluate the feature and I think it’s clear that the positioning is indeed detriment to noticeability.

While this could (to some extent) be mitigated by making it visually more prominent, I still think that putting it on top is both a superior solution and more logical.

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  • Sorry, Konrad, for misrepresenting your original reason. I have edited the meta-question to include this.
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:11
  • @Oddthinking I didn’t actually think of it as a misrepresentation.
    – Konrad Rudolph
    Commented Mar 7, 2012 at 16:15
  • Particularly if an answer has loads of comments - currently you have to read the answer, look over all the comments and finally see the post notice at the end stating 'this is subjective....' which looks like it's associated to the answer below it not the answer way above it. - See this example from ux.se
    – JonW
    Commented Jul 10, 2012 at 11:21

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