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Our sandbox (with a permanent vote score of 124) is perpetually hogging attention near or at the top of our Meta homepage.

In contrast, Physics StackExchange's sandbox's activities rightly occur under the hood, because editing that sandbox does not bump it, thanks to its -17 vote score, due to this prominent notice at its top:

NB: It's hard not to like this meta post but please keep it downvoted to -8 or less (rather than upvoting it) so that it doesn't get bumped to the front meta page every time someone is experimenting in the sandbox, which usually is not interesting to anyone else.

Let's emulate PSE's sensible setup: close our current sandbox, then create a new one with a similar directive that it be kept heavily downvoted.

As usual: upvote for aye, downvote for nay.

EDIT to highlight pertinent comments:

  1. GerryMyerson:

    isn't it a good thing for the sandbox to be visible/prominent for those who might not otherwise know about it, or might forget about it?

  2. MartinSleziak’s suggested workaround (may be more aggressive than desired):

    Profile$\to$Settings$\to$Tag watching & ignoring$\to$Sandbox

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    $\begingroup$ Iirc I needed to get the SE team involved when I created the original sandbox, e.g. see here, but I don't recall if it involved any more than that (twas over a decade ago). $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Jul 11, 2022 at 18:08
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    $\begingroup$ Can't currently downvote it - it's locked. That said, my eyes just pass over it automatically these days, but wouldn't mind doing what you suggest, if I could. $\endgroup$
    – JonathanZ
    Jul 11, 2022 at 18:09
  • $\begingroup$ Well, feel free to figure out what needs to be done, and come back here when you want those downvotes. Like I said, not an issue for me, but happy to makes things better for other. $\endgroup$
    – JonathanZ
    Jul 11, 2022 at 18:14
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    $\begingroup$ Definitely in support of this idea. That the sandbox is bumped all the time is quite annoying. $\endgroup$
    – Arctic Char
    Jul 11, 2022 at 19:14
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    $\begingroup$ Maybe the SE team has an easy way to change the votes on the current sandbox. That would be the easiest fix. $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Jul 11, 2022 at 20:20
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    $\begingroup$ @BillDubuque Thanks. I've asked the SE team member, whose comment you linked above, to take a look. $\endgroup$
    – ryang
    Jul 12, 2022 at 2:07
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    $\begingroup$ Of all the things that bother me about stackexchange sites, I think the repeated bumping of the sandbox bothers me the least. Anyway, isn't it a good thing for the sandbox to be visible/prominent for those who might not otherwise know about it, or might forget about it? $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Jul 12, 2022 at 3:17
  • $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson Good point! This changes my position from pro-DownvoteTheSandbox to being on the fence. $\endgroup$
    – ryang
    Jul 12, 2022 at 3:28
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    $\begingroup$ Personally, I do not mind seeing the sandbox on the frontpage. (In the other words, I haven't added (sandbox) to my ignored tags. A tangential question - naturally following from this post - what is the tag (sandbox) intended for? Should it only be used on sandboxes, or for questions about sandboxes, too? $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Jul 12, 2022 at 7:53
  • $\begingroup$ Re: my recent EDIT: @MartinSleziak "Sorry for being aggressive - if that's what you meant to say". Not at all, haha; to be super clear: I was echoing your implicit point that ignoring the 'Sandbox' tag has the side-effect of aggressively filtering out not just the Mathematics Sandbox but also discussion threads like this page. $\endgroup$
    – ryang
    Jul 12, 2022 at 12:03
  • $\begingroup$ The Physics Sandbox is now -18. $\endgroup$
    – mathlander
    Nov 6, 2022 at 18:28
  • $\begingroup$ It has score -19 now. $\endgroup$
    – mathlander
    Nov 14, 2022 at 18:11
  • $\begingroup$ Downvoting will not represent users’ ideas of the sandbox accurately. $\endgroup$
    – Тyma Gaidash
    Mar 11 at 12:54

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