Users are discussing a design change in Discourse’s mobile interface, specifically the removal of a persistent notification bubble on the profile picture. ljpp reports that while notifications appear in the menu, the avatar icon no longer displays a visible badge until the user opens the menu, which causes confusion. JammyDodger explains this may be intentional to reduce nagging, but ljpp and Richie argue it breaks the previous behavior where the badge stayed until all notifications were cleared, leading to missed alerts. The issue is seen as particularly problematic for busy communities, with Richie noting that staff and members are frustrated. Canapin suggests the lack of widespread complaints may explain why it hasn’t been addressed, while Richie reflects on the meta forum’s audience being mostly community managers rather than end users.
Overall me and our community have a bit of a hard time with the new burger menu and profile menu. The new design brings a lot of complexity, but I am yet to realize any benefits.
Anyway, there is something off with the notifications. Screenshots are from Android Chrome.
Profile pic has no notification bubble
Tap it and there is a ton of stuff
i’m just responding to say how cool it is to see another sports fan related Discourse forum like mine 
also, is your discourse version up to date and have you checked in safe mode yet?
The notification bubble on the avatar isn’t sticky, but the ones inside the menu are. So you get a ‘ping’ on the avatar for a new one, and then if you open the menu to look it will clear the avatar one.
Does that behaviour match up with what you’re seeing?
It very much might be. What is the idea of this design? It is causing some confusion in the community, our staff included.
@Lilly Oh yes, ice hockey is our thing and we are quite good at it. We are pretty big on the national level and switching to Discourse was the key to rapid growth.
I think it’s so you can have the initial ‘look at me’ splash of colour, but then not be nagged by it if you don’t want to deal with anything in your list straight away.
Personally, I dislike when stuff is hidden behind taps or clicks. The old design had the light on until all events were cleared, right?
Overall, the new mobile menu designs look and feel very crowded on a large/busy community. Marie Kondo could pay a visit.
oh i misunderstood the OP, i thought you mean you weren’t getting any notification badges on your avatar at all.
I was trying to work out how to best describe the issue our community has been facing for while now, thankfully @ljpp has explained our biggest community complaint perfectly here:
This is exactly what our members (and I) are complaining about 
Same. Our club members, our TL3, our TL4 and all of our staff are all being driven mad by this behaviour.
It most definitely did.
The complaint from our community, and our own team (and myself!) is that if you receive 5x DMs overnight, you click to read the first one, you reply or action whatever needed actioning and then whoosh! The green envelope is gone and you’re completely unaware of any unread DMs (and 101 other notifications).
Is there a setting to revert this behaviour? So a flair remains visible all the time you have unread “things”? Or maybe a theme component or similar to override this? 
Are no other communities struggling with this?
Hey Richie
If communities struggle, they’ll be able to share their voices here spontaneously. Also, know that many customers can reach us privately and that their voice weighs.
If nothing is done, it’s probably because too few people are bothered by this; thus, it’s not considered as an issue for most communities.
meta is a place for community managers, not the end users
I’m guessing it’s only a small handful of communities that are struggling with this issue then 
Hmm, sorry, that didn’t come across quite how I intended it 
What I meant was, most of the people here on meta are community managers, I’d guess <1% are end users
