Anyone else find these blue banners announcing ones activity, very condescending, immature and annoying?
Maybe even embarassing for the OP concerned! 
The Discourse forum does not need such childish improvisations!
Just my opinion please feel free to comment, I know I will never add this feature to any of my forum groups.
Tracey, I’m also French, and I find this pretty great. So, this may not have much to do with it.
Signaling that it’s the first post of someone and the person should be welcomed (and maybe isn’t used yet to how things work on the forum) seems a good thing to me.
Signaling that someone is back after a while also seems a good thing to me.
Yeah, no offence but these days, I keep on noticing how some people see “problems” and are negative about quite everything. Not saying you are necessarily one of these persons, but that’s what this is inspiring me. And here, the country you are referring to may have something to do with it 
If a very regular poster leaves for several months and nobody notices he wasn’t there for a long period, isn’t that more embarrassing for him ?
A welcome Yes ! I agree,
But a banner saying that you havent’ posted for 4 months!!! … personally ( imo) I find that a bit weird and I would not like it.
Infact, It would put me off posting which in the case of others could mean missing out on something rather interesting or informative which would be a shame.
I suppose one could think of this type of banner in this scenario: A group of people are standing around conversing. Another person walks up and one in the group says, “Wow! We haven’t seen you in four months! How are you and what have you been up to?” Would that be cause for that person not to talk to them? 
All the more reason to talk to them.I agree, absolutely great to catch up, but not at their expense… bit different to saying it in a group of 8 or 9 people down the pub than on an international forum! 
Why announce their absence?
Exactly !
Now, if everybody behaves like they just saw the absent person the day before, that person may think to himself “wow, they didn’t even notice I wasn’t there for 4 months. So, if I participate or not, they don’t see any difference. WTH am I loosing my time here ?”
@Tracey I see it exactly the other way around: “Down the pub” or in a very small group, they will probably have noticed the person’s absence. On a big forum, let’s be honest, there are so many people, so many messages, and so many nicknames (or names) to remember, that any individual poster is forgotten pretty quickly. With this blue banner, you exactly “prevent” what I just described above to Jim.
And there’s the “cruel” way: You don’t want a blue banner after a long absence: Keep posting regularly (joke)
Let’s be honest It’s a catch 22 situation! 
On the member level I guess there could be Yet Another Setting ™ eg. “highlight my arrival / return”
I have a feeling that having a large number of member settings would be more detrimental than any single particular feature.
That is Blackmail!!
On two forums that I am in (a mod in one, admin in the other), I’ve noticed some members seem to not even bother with changing their usernames from the default “everything in front of the @ sign” in their email addresses. When I mentioned it to them, a few have changed it on their own, but most ask me to do it for them. 
Having even more member settings would indeed be mostly unnecessary and bloat the software - kind of like what happened to Windows.
I’m English but living in France and French speaking with French family, but get where you are coming from. Thanks for your reply.
I absolutely love them. They are really useful, especially the new user banner.
OK… ok guys I really need to rephrase - I do love a blue banner…BUT it depends what’s on it.
Hello or Welcome to our community …Yes ,yes ,yes…
But when I saw the 4 months since last posting? Not my cup of tea, and I can say that 'cos I’m English 
Ps anyone can say that irrespective of nationality 
I thought that those banners were not visible to the person posting.
That is even worse! 
So condescending is correct? 
Or is a new or very ancient poster supposed to believe that all of a sudden everyone 
likes them?
Welcome by all means but let’s do it to their face!
I find them very helpful. I can tell when someone is a new user or if a user that I don’t recognize is a long time discourse user who just doesn’t spend their whole life here. It gives context to the questions they ask.
But maybe read Post notices for first-time and returning users rather than rehashing it all again.
Ok… never thought of it that way, but if the OP does not see it, isn’t it a bit like talking about them behind their back…
I really like the positives …Welcome, congratulations, anniversaries etc … but saying 9 months since he or she posted or the worlds biggest loser … not so good? 
Sure, there is also the opposite of what I described above: These banners prevent “genuine” reactions from people who would notice by themselves someone is new or was absent. But Jay posted a great link showing how to disable the feature if you don’t want/like it. You only have to make a choice: Do you prefer to HAVE this feature, or NOT have it ?
The feature is GOOD …it is what is typed within that has to be carefully monitored.
(especially if the OP is not privy to this information)
You can customise the text.
Go to Admin -> Customize -> Text Content
