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For the last few days I've seen questions in the front page that appear much fainter than the rest. I had seen such things in other sites with questions or answers that were heavily downvoted, but this does not appear to be the case for the questions where I'm seeing this now. Is there any explanation?

Here is an example:

          Example
         

Update: As Martin suggested in a comment, this is caused by tags that were somehow in my "ignored" list. However, unlike the screenshot in his link, I do not have such a list on the sidebar on the right of the screen. Any ideas why?

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    $\begingroup$ The link seems to go to a review from Math Reviews, not to anything at MO. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:14
  • $\begingroup$ Sigh Thanks, Gerry. I'll see what happened and add the correct link back. $\endgroup$
    – Andrés E. Caicedo
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:15
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    $\begingroup$ Do you have some tags among your ignored tags? (Perhaps added by mistake.) "Questions with these tags are then dimmed or removed entirely from question lists." (This depends on the user's preferences.) More details on this: What do “favorite tags” and “ignored tags” do? $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:33
  • $\begingroup$ @Martin That is probably it. Do you know how to see one's list of ignored tags? (Mine should be empty, but apparently is not.) $\endgroup$
    – Andrés E. Caicedo
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:37
  • $\begingroup$ (@Gerry The correct link has been added. Apologies for the original mix-up.) $\endgroup$
    – Andrés E. Caicedo
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:39
  • $\begingroup$ @AndrésE.Caicedo As explained in the above links, there are several places to see them. But the most accessible seems to be the list of ignored tags displayed in the sidebar on the right (when viewing the list of questions). I will add link to this question - not because it is related to yours, but mainly because it has a screenshot showing where the ignored tags are displayed: Updating favorite/ignored tags on tagged questions page messes up formatting. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:42
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    $\begingroup$ @Martin Hmm. Yes, that's what was confusing me. My sidebar does not include ignored tags, so I figured I didn't have any. Why don't you post the comment as an answer? (Why I do not have the list of ignored tags displayed on the sidebar seems a different issue altogether.) $\endgroup$
    – Andrés E. Caicedo
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:51
  • $\begingroup$ (@Martin Thank you, by the way. It was maddening.) $\endgroup$
    – Andrés E. Caicedo
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:56
  • $\begingroup$ Strangely enough, ignored tags are shown (at least to me) only after I click on "edit" next to favorite tags. (Even after I add some tags.) I'll try to make some kind of answer. (BTW I'm glad to see that you come to meta at least occasionally.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 22:58
  • $\begingroup$ As a side note - I have edited the tags a bit, but I'll leave up to you whether or not to remove the tag (bug). $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Sep 5, 2017 at 2:36
  • $\begingroup$ @Martin I removed it. The ones you added make definitely more sense. Thanks again. $\endgroup$
    – Andrés E. Caicedo
    Commented Sep 5, 2017 at 3:15

1 Answer 1

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The behavior you describe seems to be consistent with having some tags among your ignored tags.

Many details about them can be found in the FAQ: What do “favorite tags” and “ignored tags” do? - I will quote some relevant parts.

By default, questions with these tags are shown faded; they are still visible but less prominent. If you select Hide questions in your ignored tags in the Tags section of /users/preferences, they are hidden completely (this is done by a client-side script however, so you may notice odd “gaps”.)

There are several ways to add/remove ignored tags:

  • In the tag’s tooltip, click on the star twice (or once, if you have favoured that tag).
  • On the main page’s sidebar, click on edit next to Favorite Tags.
  • On /users/preferences, use the respective field in the Tags section.

Note that you can use wildcards in the latter two.

When you hover over any tag you are shown a tooltip. By repeatedly clicking on the star in the upper left corner you can toggle between none/favorite/ignored. (Correspondingly to these possibilities the star toggles between grey, gold and red cross.)

Adding ignored tag via tooltip

In the sidebar on the right when viewing questions you should see list of favorite tags.

sidebar

When you click on the word edit, you can edit your favorite tags and your ignored tags. (It seems that ignored tags are not shown until you click on edit. But I did not find some documentation or a post on the main meta where this detail is explicitly spelled out.)

sidebar after you click on edit

And, as mentioned above, the third option is to go to your profile and there choose "Edit Profile & Settings" and then "Preferences".

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you Martin! $\endgroup$
    – Andrés E. Caicedo
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 23:34

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