DEV Community

How to get rid off hero banners on DEV.to

Paweł Kowalski on June 23, 2020

If you are anything like me, you don't like ads, tracking, wasting space, wasting transfers and shoving ideologies down my throat in places where t...
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Ben Sinclair

I manipulate sites to remove unwanted content that isn't ads, like menu items for products in a suite I know I'll never use. I wrote a post about it, as it happens.

But...

I will fight for my sanity and peace of mind, but at the end of the day, I'm asking myself if it's worth being in a place where evidently I'm not welcomed.

Where did that come from? You say that these banners are "attacking" you, and that you're "not welcome[d]", but I don't really understand the train of thought that got you there.

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Paweł Kowalski

I use couple greasemonkey scripts (for github, twitter). Sometimes they are life savers, or productiviti savers (like wide github, for people with wide screens, or dark mode for sites that dont have it).

Well, im a simple man, i see a full screen thing popping up on my face, i assume whoever created it, doesnt want me here. It doesnt matter if its "Hey uninstall adblock", paywall, privacy warnings, cookie gibberish, or anything else. Most of those can be easily blocked by adblock, but some of them spend more money on fighting adblocks than actual content. Thats why I dont visit medium.com/*, washington post, etc. I blocked them in my adblock (or /etc/hosts) because i cannot explain this kind of behavior in any other way than: go away.

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Michael Tharrington

I totally get that you see DEV as a place for you to escape from what many folks would refer to as "politics" and that you don't want to see anything that isn't just focused on the programming side of programming.

That said, the point of these messages is not to harass anyone. On the contrary, it's worth noting that the overwhelming message we're trying to send with these banners and announcements is that all are welcome here and we encourage everyone to actively participate in making DEV an inclusive, thoughtful, kind place that's open to all developers.

These banners and announcements speak to events that line up well with our Code of Conduct which promotes diversity and inclusivity. So, these aren't just one-off announcements for us, but true reflections of our company values.

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pavelloz profile image
Paweł Kowalski • Edited

Well, I feel extremely excluded when I have to perform closing actions to see the main content of the page. I think its a huge usability issue.

Also it is kind of disrespectful trying to push idea of celebrating anything to an adult audience. For example, I can think for myself and celebrate whatever i want to, without any encouragement in form of a banner on software development site. If you want to celebrate, nobody is preventing you? It just doesn't have to be forced upon all users to close some things when they want to do why they came for to this website every time you celebrate something.

Anyway, its not my problem anymore, I got rid off it. It's now problem of all the other users that will have to deal with it.

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🦄N B🛡 • Edited

Those pushes are hostile to everyone who do not want to celebrate, participate, but just want to use the page.

I don't think there's anything hostile, there.

But I think it would be wise for the dev.to, as a platform, to be more honest and direct about their political leanings, and what those leanings might imply about with disagreement with them.

Because not everybody agrees with the prevailing Campus Ideology, like White Privilege, the Patriarchy, or that Disparities == Discrimination.

That said, it's miles ahead of Twitter, Facehook, or Reddit, as far as I can tell, in terms of equanimity and a modicum of presuming good faith.

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Michael Tharrington

I think the banners generally provide insight into our "political leanings" — not sure how you can be much more direct about your beliefs than to point to them out with a banner on the site. 😅

I also think we're very tolerant about people disagreeing with our "political leanings". But if our "political leanings" are tied to calls for diversity and inclusion, then folks who oppose these thoughts may feel obligated to act against our Code of Conduct. If they do so, then we may act to call them out or even put a note on their comment that we think it's unconstructive.

In this context, there was a banner around this time that pointed to dev.to/black-lives-matter. To us, this was an opportunity to show support to the Black community on DEV — it seems to jive really well with our Code of Conduct's call for empathy and inclusion. I don't think we were being dishonest or indirect about our ideologies.

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Thomas Bnt

Or simply desactivate here

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Paweł Kowalski

Wow! :) Thanks, that is much more user friendly than my ublock hacking :D

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Paweł Kowalski

If it only worked...
announcements

Apparently, I had it off all along. So, yeah, they are not announcements, its something else that i dont want.

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Thomas Bnt

Owh.. it's too bad.. I reported that to Admins 🙌🏼

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Cameren Dolecheck

I truly appreciate this post. While, I am not bothered so much by the space taken up and having to scroll past, I do share the sentiment you shared about the banners and what they represent.