Why is there a duck on the SF&F page?

Question

No, really, the question is all in the title.

And why is it asking me to connect a microphone to talk with he/her/it? O_o

Answer 1

It's an April Fool's joke.

All across Stack Exchange, for as long as it's April Fool's Day anywhere in the world (e.g. right now it's still March in the Americas and Europe, but it's been the 1st of April in New Zealand for quite a while), you'll see this Clippy-style duck. It's a piece of harmless fun; feel free to ignore it.

Why a rubber duck? It's a reference to a common meme among programmers: you can often solve problems simply by explaining them, not necessarily to a person but even just to a dumb rubber duck. (Of course, here on SFF we're not all programmers, but the joke - and the SE network - originates from Stack Overflow, which is a programming site.)

As for the request to hear you speak, don't worry: it can't really access your microphone. No matter what you say, or even if you click to say you don't have a microphone on your computer, the duck's response will be the same:

QUACK!

For more details, see main meta, where this April Fool's trick has its own tag.

Answer 2

It's a "funny" April fool's "joke". See Stack Exchange has been taken over by a rubber duck! for more details.

For the record, it's not actually trying to access your microphone. Whatever option you choose it just plays an unskippable animation, makes a noise, then offers you the option to keep it or block it.