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Note: I am aware that the site switcher has moved to the right side of the page. This isn't a case of me clicking the wrong icon, it's a case of the site-switcher itself being a link to stackexchange.com (which is not new behaviour, and expected when javascript is disabled) for no good reason.

This is the button I am talking about

My browser can be pretty slow sometimes, and I often find myself in cases where I want to use the site-switcher before whatever javascript magic running it has finished loading up. When I do, the site-switcher button acts like a normal link to stackexchange.com.

This is almost exactly never where I want to go when I click that button; pretty much every time I'm clicking on the site-switcher, it's because I want to access…

  1. …the meta for the site I'm currently on
  2. …the chat for the site I'm currently on
  3. …one of the other sites I frequently use

These are all things that the site-switcher is great at doing. I'm happy, you're happy, everyone's happy. Stackexchange.com, on the other hand, doesn't really give me convenient access to any site metas, any chat rooms, or even really any other sites.

Sure, sometimes maybe I want to go to check out the hot questions feed, but if I was going to do that there's now a big "Stack Exchange" logo on the top left of the page that takes me right there (and much more intuitively). Having the site-switcher point there by default might've made sense in the old top-bar before there was a dedicated link, but right now it's just redundant and ultimately only exists to cause pain and frustration for all involved.

If you must have that icon point to somewhere, maybe a page that basically duplicates the site-switcher functionality (Even stackexchange.com/sites would be better; at least that's actually "A list of all 171 Stack Exchange sites" like the mouseover text indicates).

Otherwise, I'd be pretty happy if that button just does nothing at all until the magic site-switching menu code I'm actually expecting actually loads up (which is already how the inbox, achievements and help icons behave when their javascript doesn't load).

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  • 2
    The site switcher is now on the right. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/301845/new-top-bar-is-live
    – Oded
    Oct 22, 2017 at 23:20
  • 4
    @Oded I am aware of that. This isn't new behaviour, but it's now redundant since the big logo on the left also links to the same page (and much more intuitively).
    – goldPseudo
    Oct 22, 2017 at 23:25
  • 1
    Wonder if the question being reorganised might help."However, my browser can be pretty slow sometimes, and I often find myself in cases where I want to use the site-switcher before whatever javascript or CSS magic running it has finished loading up. When I do, the site-switcher button acts like a normal link to stackexchange.com. " feels like what people need to read first.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 22, 2017 at 23:41
  • @sumelic It's the expected behaviour when you have javascript disabled; you can probably repro it by refreshing the page and clicking the site-switcher immediately when it comes up (ymmv since it depends on how slow your browser and internet connection is).
    – goldPseudo
    Oct 22, 2017 at 23:51
  • Worth noting that whether the SE logo remains a link to Stackexchange.com is still undecided. Might be best to address this after final decisions are made on that front.
    – Catija
    Oct 23, 2017 at 0:47
  • 1
    @Catija he dosen't mean that tho
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 23, 2017 at 0:48
  • @JourneymanGeek The crux of the argument here is that linking to Se.com is redundant. If it's not redundant, this may be a non-issue.
    – Catija
    Oct 23, 2017 at 0:49
  • 6
    @Catija Whether they keep the top-left link or not, the behaviour of the site-switcher link in this regard is still inconsistent with the rest of the icons and rarely the expected or desired outcome.
    – goldPseudo
    Oct 23, 2017 at 0:51
  • nuuu. the site switched defaults to SE before the 'correct' site info gets loaded. Kinda a non issue except in his edge case. Nothing to do with the left side at all
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 23, 2017 at 0:52
  • Then I think the redundancy part of the question is... redundant. If it's irrelevant to the argument, inclusion makes people like me say what I did :)
    – Catija
    Oct 23, 2017 at 0:53
  • 1
    @catija The behaviour is both undesirable and redundant right now. I was hoping it would make my argument twice as compelling (although it doesn't seem to be working...)
    – goldPseudo
    Oct 23, 2017 at 0:57
  • 3
    Stop clicking the site switcher before the external scripts get loaded
    – Optimus Prime
    Oct 23, 2017 at 2:49
  • 2
    @OptimusPrime We can't really ask that from people. Not everyone would understand. The SE network is no longer developer exclusive as there are a lot of non-tech people. Even for developers, if they aren't familiar with JavaScript/web development, they wouldn't understand what is going on (It's not like we can add a notification "Don't click the switcher before the page loads"). Example: meta.askubuntu.com/questions/17394/…
    – Dan
    Oct 26, 2017 at 9:51

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