staffordian wrote:Gerry557 wrote:It would be nice to see or start at the new posts since last visit. This will prevent me from skipping to the last post in a thread and reading backwards to the previous postI readon the subject.
Clicking the red round circle to the left of each topic does that for me.
I always start my "session" by selecting unread posts from the quick links menu (three horizontal lines above the word Home), scrolling through the resulting list and clicking the circle for those I'm interested in.
Then afterwards, click mark all read.
I'd be interested to hear how others use the forum.
Preparatory steps (rarely repeated - basically only initial set-up and occasionally revise when the board structure is changed or my assessment of what I'm likely to be interested in changes)
A) Subscribe to the boards whose threads I'm likely to be interested in, unsubscribe to any whose threads I've decided I'm no longer likely to be interested in. ("Boards" and "threads" are "forums" and "topics" respectively in phpBB-speak, but that's thoroughly confusing when answering a question about how I "use the forum", and when issues about whether posts are "on-topic" or "off-topic" for their board and/or thread are likely to arise!)
B) Set my notification options so that my subscription to a board only results in me being notified about new threads on the board.
C) If I've subscribed to any new boards, look through the existing threads on that board and bookmark any that I want to follow. (This involved very little when I started reading TLF. More now, but one can for instance assume that threads which haven't seen a new post for a few months are highly likely to be 'dead' and not miss much as a result.)
Usual reading/posting procedure1) Enter the boards at
the "Manage bookmarks" part of my User Control Panel.
2a) All threads that I've currently got bookmarked come up in most-recently-posted-to order, with red (rather than blue) circles to their left if they've acquired new posts since I last read them, and I click on those red circles to go to the new posts and read them. If I lose interest in it, I remove it from my bookmarks and generally never see it again.
2b) I get notified about new threads I'm likely to be interested in. Clicking on the notification brings up the thread concerned - if I am interested in it, I bookmark it; otherwise I move on and generally never see it again.
2c) When I start a new thread, I bookmark it.
Steps 2a, 2b and 2c can be done in any order, including only doing some of the threads in one of them, then some in another, then returning to the first, etc, and quite possibly with significant time gaps between them. I may also sometimes become aware of a thread I'm interested in on a board I'm not generally interested in, e.g. because someone links to it from a thread I am reading - if that happens, I bookmark it to put it on my reading list.
MaintenanceI occasionally run through my list of bookmarks, removing 'dead wood' - i.e. removing the bookmarks for threads which
both appear to have died (no new posts for a few months)
and I have no particular reason to think I'm going to want to refer to again. I do this to reduce the 'needle in a haystack' issue for finding the threads I
am likely to want to refer to again to manageable proportions...
Suitability, etcThis method suits me well, but it won't suit everyone. In particular, it won't suit those who want to read the whole site or to guarantee not missing anything that they're interested in - it does rely on my assessment that I'm likely to be interested in threads on HYP Practical and unlikely to be interested in threads on Sports Bar, for instance. As far as I'm concerned, not wasting my time looking through masses of post subjects that don't interest me is more important than getting 100% coverage of ones that do interest me...
It does have the weakness that I've got to remember to bookmark the threads that do interest me. I'm pretty good at that, but very occasionally slip up - a rather embarrassing slip-up if I forget to bookmark a thread I started myself! A related weakness is that if threads are moved from one board to another, a notification is only generated for its original board and not for the board it's moved to - so I can find myself notified about a highly-political thread that's now on Current Affairs & News or not notified at all about a thread that's now on HYP Practical. The former is typically just a matter of moving on and never seeing the thread again; the latter can result in me not seeing a thread I would be interested in for a long time... I am also liable not to notice for a long time if someone revives a long-dead thread. However, all of these are rare enough events that I'm not too bothered about them.
Gengulphus