29

As a user with lots of rep on Stack Overflow, and having used Stack Overflow for almost a decade now, I find this popup:

Welcome back! If you found this question useful, don't forget to vote both the question and the answers up.

disruptive and certainly unnecessary, given my familiarity level with the sites. I habitually hide that bar when it comes up as I would any other pop-up on any other site. Could users with high rep have that pop-up bar obstruct the site less frequently?

14
  • 25
    Maybe this is a bug? I never see that.
    – BSMP
    Commented Feb 23, 2018 at 19:04
  • I don't have a whole lot of rep, but I've been seeing this more recently as well. Not sure if it's related or if my behavior on the site has changed recently to change the frequency? Commented Feb 23, 2018 at 19:05
  • @silencedmessage Do you go days/weeks without visiting?
    – BSMP
    Commented Feb 23, 2018 at 19:07
  • 1
    I'm typically a daily visitor. Commented Feb 23, 2018 at 20:00
  • 12
    Try voting more often. The bar should then appear less frequently :-)
    – Bergi
    Commented Feb 23, 2018 at 22:11
  • I often see it when I go to the Mathematics stack exchange, but every once in a while I see it here.
    – Davy M
    Commented Feb 23, 2018 at 23:55
  • 14
    @Kzqai your vote stats are 1,488 questions, 4,995 answers. Maybe SO would like a higher questionVote/answerVote ratio? My personal stats are 1,285 questions 1,361 answers and I never see the message.
    – Cœur
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 2:13
  • I think @Cœur is onto something here. I also never get the message. I have 1.3k question votes and 900 answer votes. Btw this might as well be coming from the weekly vote stats combined with the number of questions and answers you view. Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 3:21
  • 3
    3,130 question, 983 answer. Never see it either. I noticed that most of us stating here they never see it have the Electorate badge. Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 12:09
  • 1
    Iirc, if you have high rep, this message appears only if you upvote a lot of answers in a row without upvoting quetions. Happens more often on low-rep accounts.
    – Athari
    Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 10:29
  • 5
    The related MSE questions don't talk at all about any q/a ratio as a criterion for showing this message, like Disable “don't forget to vote” message or I see “Welcome back! If you found this question useful…” message very frequently
    – Adinia
    Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 14:12
  • 3
    I think I see this message more after I clear my cache. Is it associated with a cookie? Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 14:32
  • 1
    @HaveSpacesuit yes, it's related to cookies.
    – Braiam
    Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 16:09
  • 1
    The OP is likely seeing the banner on some other SE site like SuperUser, where they don't have enough rep to hide it. >> "given my familiarity level with the sites" <<<
    – pkamb
    Commented Apr 12, 2019 at 8:43

2 Answers 2

7

Can we get some details on how this is supposed to work?

I have 60k+ rep and have been using Stack Overflow (signed in) since the beta started... yet I see this banner regularly (feels like every month or so?)

What conditions trigger this message? and what is done to track the dismissal? (cookie? localstorage? DB?)

Here's the one I saw today, that made me come here to file/upvote the bug. enter image description here

Which I saw when following a google search result link to this question: Bug: React does not recognize the allowTransparency prop on a DOM element (if it helps track anything down)

(Windows 10, Firefox 102)

So I got this again :-(, because it was a weekend, thus I wasn't hitting StackOverflow for over 48 hours as per bullet 1 here: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/89059/6144

I really think there needs to be an additional condition in here, or an adjustment of the timer to be more than 48hours... like say 96 hours. Otherwise this is a very likely message EVERY SINGLE MONDAY MORNING!

I think it should be noted here that this is not achieving its intended goal. I know that I should upvote good questions, I do vote them up, but because this loads up blocking the UI, a user's first action is to dismiss it because it is in the way, blocking navigation etc. It's like websites that try to get you to sign up to an email list for a promo code before you've even had 2 seconds to look and see if the product you linked to is what you are actually after (from a Google search)

I also noticed in the JS to dismiss the message, its just a visual dismissal, there's nothing done to dismiss this for a longer time frame... which would also help if this pushed off this message for 3-6 months.

enter image description here

6
  • 3
    As Braiam commented, this seems to be related to cookies, unless it has been changed since 2011. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/89045/… Commented Mar 27, 2023 at 14:21
  • 2
    Ah, based on these bullets, I think the cookie solution (only) is flawed. There needs to be an understanding/tracking for long term use. This is like reminding me every week that I should wear a seatbelt when I drive... ignoring that I've done this for 30 years now without fail. If I've upvoted questions in the past, I know how the site works, please don't show me the message... or give me a checkbox option for "Yeah, got it, don't remind me again"
    – scunliffe
    Commented Mar 27, 2023 at 15:10
  • 3
    good luck with that, ;)
    – Kevin B
    Commented Mar 27, 2023 at 15:14
  • 1
    Ugh... if this won't be fixed, I guess I'll have to write a browser extension to auto-dismiss/remove this specific banner message when it appears. Will share a link to it here when done.
    – scunliffe
    Commented Mar 27, 2023 at 15:19
  • For those seeking a fix to this, see my speculation in the sibling answer:
    – Kzqai
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 13:26
  • meta.stackoverflow.com/a/423927/69993
    – Kzqai
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 13:26
-2

After having experienced this a lot, and finding the popup annoying to have to dismiss frequently, unless some code changed to decrease the frequency of the above, I found it to be a ratio of voting problem. In other words, the message is conveying that stack overflow disliked my ratio of voting more for answers than questions. So I went through and upvoted some of the questions that I have liked the answers to, and I stopped getting that popup.

Your mileage may vary, but:

  • if you are tired of getting this message, just go through and vote up 50 or 100 questions that you found useful.
  • if you have a ton of upvotes for answers, it seems to pick that up even if you also have a ton of upvotes for questions, it has a problem with your ratio, and ignores your volume. You could have upvoted 10,000 questions, but if you also upvoted 100,000 answers, it seems to want to complain about your ratio, as silly as that is.
1
  • 1
    The banner will also show the first time you visit a site after a while of not visiting, regardless of your voting activity.
    – TylerH
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 13:36

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .