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Like if someone is going to do a reboot for testing could there be some way that they could set something so that if someone hovers over their name in a comment or answer/question that it could display their status? Someone could set status like "at work, can not respond at all", or "back in 3 minutes after a reboot", or even some "on vacation" thing to just show when they may be back. Not an enforced thing just an option.

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Personally, I would hate to see this feature implemented. I can see no good coming of it except that I would now be expected to respond promptly to comments or chat messages because some indicator decided I am "here".

First of all, it's nobody's business but my own what I happen to be doing. This is not a social networking site and SE have, in general, resisted any suggestion that it become one. Many of us visit the site while working, for example, so I may be here because I'm looking something up but have no time to answer anything.

That said, there are actually two ways of checking when a user was last seen:

  1. There is a last seen entry in a user's profile:

                                                                  enter image description here

  1. For those of us who ware active on the various chat rooms of the SE network, you can click on our chat avatars in one of the chat rooms and get even more detailed info:

                                                            enter image description here

So, you already have two easy ways of getting an idea whether or not a use is currently online. Adding more would be both too invasive (IMO) and add unnecessary clutter to the site and the SE engine.

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  • what if it was a by choice thing, like instead of commenting that you have to reboot you could just click a button on the statusbar at the top and it would say you would be back in like 5min or something
    – sbergeron
    Oct 4, 2014 at 18:52
  • @sbergeron if you really wanted to, you could always change your "about me" on your profile.
    – terdon
    Oct 4, 2014 at 18:54
  • I guess, I was just wondering if a convenience like that could be added for some people just a little thing to say about how long you will be gone so if someone is replying in comments you can just say to everyone that you'd be back in ___ minutes instead of having to do updates so you need to account for utc and such
    – sbergeron
    Oct 4, 2014 at 18:55
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    @sbergeron well, as I said I would be against it but that's just my opinion. I'm not a mod here and I don't necessarily represent the community's view. No reason to accept my answer unless it made you change your mind. You can leave it open and invite more opinions.
    – terdon
    Oct 4, 2014 at 18:57
  • it's fine, just an idea I had
    – sbergeron
    Oct 4, 2014 at 18:59
  • @sbergeron This might be a privilege thing, but if people wanted to just edit their about me the rest is already implemented: i.imgur.com/OKk2z2s.pngg
    – Seth
    Oct 4, 2014 at 19:14
  • do you think there would be a way of creating a client based script to run to update it?
    – sbergeron
    Oct 4, 2014 at 19:15
  • I don't have basically any html/api trigger knowledge when it comes to this
    – sbergeron
    Oct 4, 2014 at 19:17

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