7

Is there any way for site participants to disable the "Can I help?" duck icon from the bottom right-hand corner of the screen on EL&U pages? Making the icon available as an option and giving users the ability toggle it off until they want to toggle it back on again would be fine with me, but I would rather not have it setting up shop as a permanent, inescapable resident on my screen.

Maybe we could make removing it a privilege accorded to site participants who have reached, say, 1,000 rep points and so are not likely to be in dire or constant need of anatidaean assistance.

  • 2
    Admission: I haven't asked Quacky how to get rid of Quacky. – Sven Yargs Apr 1 '18 at 20:01
  • 4
    It’s an April Fool’s joke. Click the “I hate ducks” or whatever button and he’ll quack his last. He’s also not going to be here tomorrow anyway (tomorrow probably meaning tomorrow UTC or possibly NYC time). – Dan Bron Apr 1 '18 at 20:46
  • I am an April fool. If I could downvote myself, I would. In my defense, I first noticed the duck yesterday around 6:00 in the evening California time—and it was still in place this afternoon—so (not being on GMT) I am technically also a March 31 fool. – Sven Yargs Apr 1 '18 at 20:48
  • 3
    April 1 in Stack Exchange lasts from when some part of the world starts April 1 (UTC+14, or 10am on 31 March UTC) until the last part of the world starts April 2 (UTC-12, or noon 2 April UTC) – Andrew Leach Apr 1 '18 at 21:00
  • 1
    Thank you for saving me the embarrassment of posting a similar question. This must be one of the best April Fools jokes I've seen. Sophisticated, awkward, yet fun for even the 'victim' (unless the victim posts on Meta - for which, again, thank you!). :) – Lawrence Apr 2 '18 at 5:21
  • You can't ban Quacky! He makes more sense than most users and is friendlier as well! – Tim Lymington Apr 2 '18 at 17:20
  • @TimLymington: And, like Ivory Soap, he floats! – Sven Yargs Apr 3 '18 at 1:42
2

The option to say goodbye to the duck is on the last screen, so you do have to make use of it in order to get there. Click "I hate this duck".

Screenshot of option

April 1 in Stack Exchange lasts from when some part of the world starts April 1 (UTC+14, or 10am on 31 March UTC) until the last part of the world starts April 2 (UTC-12, or noon 2 April UTC), so you will have the opportunity to make use of it (or send it away) for a few hours yet.

5

The Bathtub Duck is more dangerous than the Paper Clip! Sure, if you are a klutz, drunk, or a small child you can injure yourself with the paper clip particularly if you fool with it around your eye, but bacterial horrors abound in the Bathtub Duck.

From Scientists conclude your rubber bath ducky is probably gross as hell:

That’s the conclusion of a recent study by a research team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, ETH Zurich, and the University of Illinois published this week in the journal N.P.J. Biofilms and Microbiomes, per the New York Times. The researchers wrote they collected “19 real bath toys (e.g., rubber ducks) from five different Swiss households” and then compared them to a control group, eventually concluding that the real bath toys had up to 75 million bacterial cells per square centimeter of interior surface.

According to the Times, Furtwangen University in Germany microbiologist Markus Egert told them, “That’s the same density of bacteria you can find in human stool samples. There are probably no other places on earth with such high bacterial densities.”

Toilet seats are pristine in comparison. Read the entire article if you want to be grossed out.

What does this mean for ELU? Damned if I know.

  • 2
    Well now, Ducky had become rather adorable, but it would be a shame for EL&U to become a filthy language site. – Lawrence Apr 4 '18 at 2:45

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