# Any way we can disable cutesy Discourse messages? ("Let's welcome back So'n'So") **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 19, 2021, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933 "2021-09-19T16:41:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/1 "2021-09-19T16:41:21Z")
I find the chipper little messages that automatically pop up between posts are often inappropriate. It’s jarring to have one appear in a very serious discussion. The last time was in the middle of people baring their families’ mental health problems, including suicide, and suddenly there’s a smiley face: " 🙂 **It’s been a while since we’ve seen DepressedGrandpa — their last post was 6 months ago**." If there’s any way for an individual poster to turn those off, I haven’t been able to find it. Does a mod, an Admin, or ANYone have the ability to do that? Does everyone else just _love_ those little smiley interruptions? From what I’ve seen, I doubt people would miss that function. I’ve never seen anyone stop in the middle of a discussion to say “Hey, **DepressedGrandpa**. I see you haven’t posted in 6 months. Where have you been?” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/2 "2021-09-19T16:46:51Z")
If there’s no other way, I had a plan to look into making a userscript to hide those when they show up, or at least remove the smiley face. But I kinda forgot about it. This sort of thing is harder than on the other site due to how Discourse dynamically loads. (In other words, it only shows some posts at a time to save bandwidth.) ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/3 "2021-09-19T16:50:41Z")
On the other hand, they’ve alerted me to socks posing as new posters at least twice, so they do have some utility. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/4 "2021-09-19T16:51:19Z")
> [@digs](#): > > If there’s any way for an individual poster to turn those off, I haven’t been able to find it. Does a mod, an Admin, or ANYone have the ability to do that? To me, they’re a waste of screen real estate. You can hide them with an ad-blocker. Just be careful because you might also block similar messages from the staff (like the “Don’t reply to this post” messages that sometimes crop up). ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/5 "2021-09-19T18:08:55Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Does everyone else just _love_ those little smiley interruptions? From what I’ve seen, I doubt people would miss that function. I’ve never seen anyone stop in the middle of a discussion to say “Hey, **DepressedGrandpa**. I see you haven’t posted in 6 months. Where have you been?” I think it’s quite nice to have an alert that it’s a new poster, or someone who hasn’t posted for a while. In more lighthearted threads I’ve seen people comment, or welcome a new poster. @codinghorror is usually quite open to suggestions on the text of messages, so if you can come up with a less ‘cutesy’ version then he might be willing to change it. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/6 "2021-09-19T18:18:45Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > @codinghorror is usually quite open to suggestions on the text of messages, so if you can come up with a less ‘cutesy’ version then he might be willing to change it. Avatars can be supplemented with Flair, little icons that are superimposed over the avatar. It would be possible to use that to indicate relatively new and recently returned posters. Probably be more work to implement than it’d be worth, though. They could also be used for the charter member/member/guest designations, to show Trust Levels, or to show membership in the SDSAB. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/7 "2021-09-19T18:22:02Z")
That’s a good idea. Could show who is a mod, too. It would require a SW change rather than just a trivial phrase change, though. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/8 "2021-09-19T18:54:16Z")
Perhaps they could do something along the lines of the cake icon which appears on someone’s anniversary. As I recall, it is a small icon of a slice of cake that appears to the right of the person’s name. It seems like they could have similar icons for a new poster or someone who is back after a long absence. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/9 "2021-09-19T18:57:54Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > That’s a good idea. Could show who is a mod, too. You should see a little shield icon beside the username of any mods. Much like filmore’s suggestion, I wonder if that field could be expanded to include more informational markers. ETA: For all that, I’d love for there to be an icon marking the OP of the thread, but that’s a little off-topic, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/10 "2021-09-19T19:06:41Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > Perhaps they could do something along the lines of the cake icon which appears on someone’s anniversary. As I recall, it is a small icon of a slice of cake that appears to the right of the person’s name. It seems like they could have similar icons for a new poster or someone who is back after a long absence. New posters have the greyed out username, but it’s not particularly obvious. > [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > You should see a little shield icon beside the username of any mods. Much like filmore’s suggestion, I wonder if that field could be expanded to include more informational markers. Most of the mods have text saying so after their name, so I didn’t look for any other indicator. But one or two of them don’t, which tripped me up at first. > [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > ETA: For all that, I’d love for there to be an icon marking the OP of the thread, but that’s a little off-topic, I guess. Like on Reddit? I don’t miss it in most threads, probably depends on the type of discussion. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/11 "2021-09-19T19:09:01Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > New posters have the greyed out username, but it’s not particularly obvious. I’d forgotten all about that. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/12 "2021-09-20T06:18:30Z")
Yeah, turns out you don’t need anything special to block this one. Adblock will work just fine. To make sure you don’t accidentally block all post messages (which can include some mod notes), make sure you only block `.new-user`. If you’d rather have a userscript, the code for this is very bare bones: ```auto let style = document.createElement('style'); style.textContent = '.new-user { display: none; }'; document.head.appendChild(style); ``` ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2021, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-we-can-disable-cutesy-discourse-messages-lets-welcome-back-sonso/950933/13 "2021-09-21T03:45:08Z")
Thanks for the suggestions, BigT and BigEveryoneElse. Though I do wish TPTB could disable them, but that’s hoping for too much…