66

Please no

Too aggressive. I am hunted in my dreams by the "share on whatever is the cool sharing place people like this year".

I would mostly appreciate something less visually aggressive, or an option to disable this stuff altogether.

Thank you!

Edit: using Firefox 3.6.13 (Crawling Slow edition)

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7
  • 2
    Where do you see that? [status-norepro] for me...
    – The Unhandled Exception
    Feb 27, 2011 at 16:57
  • @The programmers SE..
    – Stefano Borini
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:00
  • I still don't see it, I see much more discreet links to the left side of the question...
    – The Unhandled Exception
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:03
  • @The It is only displayed once in a while while following a direct link to an answer of your own; Gaming has it too.
    – badp
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:25
  • @badp. It actually came out after I posted the answer.
    – Stefano Borini
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:26
  • @Stefano I guess that, after answering, you are brought to a direct link to an answer of your own. :)
    – badp
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:36
  • 1
    +1 for crawling slow edition
    – Moshe
    Feb 27, 2011 at 22:21

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
29

This only appears:

  • a random percent of the time, decreasing chance with greater reputation
  • on your posts
  • if they are greater than 400 characters in length
  • for 1 hour after posting

Note as of 18th of June 2012 points 1 & 3 aren't being enforced experimentally to see what happens to the usage* of those buttons.

*I (Kevin Montrose) expect it stay abysmally low enough to justify removing them, hard to argue that with a random factor though.

Share icons, what sharing icons?

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  • 17
    still... too aggressive. but thanks, at least I know that I will be rageguy only a random percent of the time :)
    – Stefano Borini
    Feb 28, 2011 at 0:25
  • 1
    What is the specific thinking behind these rules?
    – Igby Largeman
    Jan 14, 2012 at 0:25
  • If I understand correctly, some are complaining about the size aesthetics moreso than the functionality. I'd prefer to see the first and fourth restrictions removed, so that there is always the opportunity to "like" it. Which leads me to ask - why do those two additional restrictions exist?
    – Brent Arias
    Jan 14, 2012 at 0:28
  • Waitaminute... Why does it decrease with greater reputation?
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Jan 14, 2012 at 2:04
  • 1
    @NullUserExceptionอ_อ Because you're more likely to be bothered by the button if you're a well-established user?
    – Chris Frederick
    Jan 14, 2012 at 16:45
  • How does stackoverflow.com/a/11104470/298479 qualify? Way less 400 chars.
    – ThiefMaster
    Jun 19, 2012 at 15:38
  • @Kevin -- then you might want to reopen and post this update to: meta.stackexchange.com/q/136720/155556 and any other related posts from today (like this one: meta.stackexchange.com/q/136733/155556 )
    – Naftali
    Jun 19, 2012 at 16:19
  • @Kevin that sure was a quick "test" :P
    – Ben Brocka
    Jun 19, 2012 at 22:28
  • @Ben - existing data had already convinced me, the test was to convince some other folks. It was a... pretty convincing change in behavior, let's put it that way.
    – Kevin Montrose
    Jun 19, 2012 at 22:29
  • @KevinMontrose so I know we're chasing posts around meta (people can follow the related links if they care and don't read enough meta already), but what are the forward options? Am I to tell my users these are gone for good? Also, sneaky ninja edit, I like.
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 21, 2012 at 15:14
40
+450

I really can't stand this stupid Facebook and Twitter.. They ruined the Internet.

There is not a single page without a "Like" button now..

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  • 11
    Your suggestion for publicizing SE sites is...?
    – Jon Seigel
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:02
  • 21
    +1 Rob Hruska likes this.
    – Rob Hruska
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:04
  • 2
    "Like" has nothing to do with Twitter.
    – badp
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:26
  • 2
    @raven - of course, you could just ignore facebook and twitter. Gets rid of so much dross. Problem solved :-)
    – Rory Alsop
    Feb 27, 2011 at 20:18
  • 3
    @Jon Seigel: I haven't really thought of it but it definitely wouldn't involve asking the people who already contributed their time by posting answers to publicize it for me.
    – Andreas Bonini
    Feb 27, 2011 at 20:19
  • @Rory: I know. I can't help it. I'm just a rubber-necking douchebag. It's just so hard to ignore them. They are the most significant train wrecks to occur on the internet in the history of its existence.
    – raven
    Feb 27, 2011 at 20:28
  • @raven -agreed. My problem is that as I have started a new company I'm having to whore myself out on any medium that might get business. And to be fair, twitter is working for me in that respect. And then I just use facebook for my band, as the fans all use it.... gah!
    – Rory Alsop
    Feb 27, 2011 at 20:29
  • 1
    You mean they ruined the web.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Oct 30, 2012 at 19:03
26

18 hours of data under the new rules plus historical data of the old scheme, reveals that in fact the share buttons are pointless.

About 90% of the people who bother to share something on Twitter/Facebook/G+ copy/paste, and the amount of traffic referred from social media (to Stack Overflow or any of the Stack Exchange's) is far too small to dedicate that kind of real estate to.

Plus everyone hates share buttons, they are the herpes of the internet.

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7
  • 1
    Hooray! Faster loading for me.
    – Ry-
    Jun 20, 2012 at 23:14
  • Kevin, you realise that's not a proper test, right? I know you're only really interested in validating your personal preference, but please don't patronise us. :|
    – kastark
    Jun 27, 2012 at 8:23
  • @dhmholley four months of data was definitive for removing them. 18 hours was all it took to show the display tweaks were hated (the important part), and not obviously effective (which they would have to be to counteract all the hate). They really were embarrassingly ineffective buttons, personal feelings on them aside.
    – Kevin Montrose
    Jun 27, 2012 at 8:31
  • Quick question then: what sort of usage figures would lead you to conclude that they were "effective"? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I've not seen anyone mention any numbers.
    – kastark
    Jun 27, 2012 at 9:20
  • 1
    1% was the cutoff. More precisely 1 in 100 new posts needed to be shared (and the share clicked at least once).
    – Kevin Montrose
    Jun 27, 2012 at 9:25
  • Why was that cutoff chosen? I assume that's based on benchmarks from other sites?
    – kastark
    Jun 27, 2012 at 9:51
  • It was to a degree arbitrary (wasn't chosen by me, but I believe the rational was "for how big and obnoxious these (question + answer) share buttons are, 1 in a 100 possible users should use them); most published stats on share buttons are about drawing traffic (which might as well be zero).
    – Kevin Montrose
    Jun 27, 2012 at 18:09
20

I would be very interested in statistics about how many people actually use these buttons (and how many new people arrive to SE this way).

Perhaps nobody uses them? Or are they invaluable source of new users?

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3
  • 1
    it may be the whole humanity, but I still find them annoying, mostly due to the presentation style.
    – Stefano Borini
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:15
  • 3
    @Stefano Borini I agree that FB and Twitter are getting a little too omnipresent on the Web, though if they were essential to SE's success, I would have no problem with them. But if they are there just because every website MUST have them (rule of cool)...
    – Matěj Zábský
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:21
  • 4
    noooo .. you linked tvtropes. 8 tabs opened in the first minute... there goes my potentially productive afternoon...
    – Stefano Borini
    Feb 27, 2011 at 17:25
1

I do not use any of the 3 sites currently listed, and have no intention of starting. The new experiment that started yesterday is now putting this in my face every time I post an answer.

The text is too big and bold!

It's very distracting and I want it gone.

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3
  • I don't think this is where your rant belongs =) If you look at the update to the accepted answer on this question, they are trying to get that feature removed.
    – Josh Darnell
    Jun 19, 2012 at 21:04
  • @jadarnel27, it was that exact update to the answer that led me to put this here. There are one or two duplicates to this question, but this one has my exact sentiments in the question itself and also obviously has the attention of StackOverflow management - I'm just corroborating and bumping back into the active list. I generate many answers a day and this is bugging the heck out of me.
    – Mark Ransom
    Jun 19, 2012 at 21:18
  • It was already on the active list due to today's edit (by an SE dev) to the accepted answer...
    – Josh Darnell
    Jun 19, 2012 at 21:46

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