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Perhaps I'm getting ahead of everyone, as this appears to be a new feature and this may already be planned. But in case it isn't, I shall request it.

If you frequent a tag very often, it appears that if it is not a part of a tag set of yours, or part of your favorite tags, it will get set as a "frequented tag", that is highlighted.

This is a later screenshot of when I was investigating elsewhere

It sprung up on me in the middle of my browsing... one second, I had a page of white questions, and then on refresh a great fraction turned blue. On the right, it says "set tag preferences", but there's nothing I can set to actually affect this, because I have no tag preferences.

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Could we enable a preference setting to turn this feature off? I can understand abiding by the rules of highlighting when I actually set favorite tags. It could also be a means to educate users as to the existence of the tag preference system, if they have not yet known about it. But for users who do know it and willingly decide not to use it, could we have the ability to choose not to have this highlighting?

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  • 18
    Clearly the solution is to delete all [game-rec] questions
    – random
    Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 15:03
  • 4
    @random That's the only reason why I'm looking at them right now (and why I probably hit so many as to trigger this system). ♪
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 15:03
  • I didn't know that "frequent" is a verb and "frequented" exists. (off-topic comment)
    – YOU
    Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 15:06
  • 6
    @YOU In English, the verb primarily refers to "frequently visit", like one might frequent a café or store. In this case, these are "frequently visited tags". The more you know~
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 15:13
  • 1
    @You, english.stackexchange.com :)
    – Jason Towne
    Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 18:06

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
17

This will be rolling out soon. Frequented tags will no longer be highlighted, though they'll still be used on the "interesting" tab on the home page of SO.

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19

In case this is only enabled for users that don't have any favorite/ignored tags set, you could simply add the tag to your favorite list to disable the feature.

I don't know if the system works that way, but it would be reasonable to not override manually set favorites by automatic guesses.

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  • 1
    This is indeed the case.
    – Rebecca Chernoff
    Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 15:22
  • 3
    I remember this being enabled for frequently participated tags, at around the time the front page algorithm was being fixed. The solution that time was also to put a junk tag in your preferences. I wonder if it's that the algorithm was changed, or simply upgraded to include just visiting tags. This is an acceptable workaround, but I'll still keep this open a bit as I would prefer something I'd be less averse to.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 15:27
  • @GraceNote - Alternatively, hit 20k rep. Badp will sneak-add "Congratulations-you-trusted-user-bp" to your favorites when you're not looking. Which breaks the 26 character limit in the first place. Hm. Now I need to add my own meta question.
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented May 8, 2011 at 6:35
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    This does work, but it would sure be nice to not have to do this. Then again, frequentedtagsfail has a nice ring to it as a favourite tag. :)
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 1:47
  • Irksome, but I've just found this after having a tag forced on me. I am now the proud owner (!) of a tag ignore for frequentedtagsfail.
    – tombull89
    Commented May 24, 2012 at 17:14
-3

This needs a way obvious solution.

First, the tag preferences link points to stack exchange where many people need to make an account. This is the first non-obvious part to fixing this.

Second, you need to favorite or ignore a tag. But it's non-obvious that you can enter in nonsense like dontautomatefavorites.

Why is there nothing in my stackoverflow (or any stackexchange site) that allows me to just "turn off highlighting".

Or like stop trying to guess at what I am doing :)

Or even worse. The first time I went to tag preferences it brought me to stackexchange. Ignored a non sense tag. Then went back to so. My "favorite" tag is still highlighted. Click on it again and it brings me to so page for ignore/favorite tags. Then I entered dummy data there and it works.

The first time I click on it it should take me to the so page, right?

This is the only frustrating thing I've had happen here so far.

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