The "Hot Network Questions" sidebar is a really nice toy when I browse Stack Exchange for fun, but it never helped me when working and using the serious Q&A aspect of, say, Stack Overflow.

It is purposefully distracting, luring one to other corners of Stack Exchange. One quarter of (my) screen estate covered by off-topic (by definition) links and texts. They draw the eye especially since there is hardly any visual separation between them and the very useful "Related" topics sidebar.

I usually skim right over "Related" and suffer some serious mental gear clashing before I realize that I had "gone too far".

Would it be possible to add a button to deactivate those links? Maybe just for an hour or two? Optimally a setting which allows to specify a time one doesn't want to be distracted. Like 9-5 on Workdays or similar.

Edit for clarification: I am not looking for some browser hack or plugin or advice on mental disorders. This is just a feature request.

marked as duplicate by rene, Kate Gregory, Billy Mailman, Mysticial, ᔕᖺᘎᕊ Jun 8 '15 at 16:52


  • @rene: This is a feature request. – AndreasT Jun 8 '15 at 16:32
  • The second one is a marked as a duplicate to the first one, and the third one's answer is completely external to the site (browser hack). Again: This is a feature request. – AndreasT Jun 8 '15 at 16:45
  • 1
    That the answer is external doesn't really matter does it? It is still the same feature request.... you can down vote the existing answer, or put a bounty on the question to give it more attention. If you really think your FR is different from the ones currently chosen as dup-target you need to clarify in your question why they are not a correct duplicate. – rene Jun 8 '15 at 16:51
  • Since meta.stackexchange.com/q/110528 is a good enough match, with a rather nonsensical answer, could you please remove the other ones that aren't? – AndreasT Jun 8 '15 at 16:59

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