Last visited calculation? New post calculation?

With the loss of the clear indication of what I have viewed, I am trying to figure out how to best use the mechanisms this board supports...

So, the "You last visited" calculation seems to be based on some maximum time of inactivity... like if you are inactive (don't load a new Fchat page) for longer than X minutes, then the next time you access an Fchat page, it updates the "You last visited" time. Is that right? If so, what's X? (How long do you have to be inactive to cause the update?)

Thus, at all times, it would seem to be keeping track of two times: the time that you last "went online" and the time that you previously "went online". (Where "went online" means you accessed a Fchat page after X minutes of inactivity.) True?


And the new posts are computed as any posts made after you "previously went online". True?

OR, is it keeping track of a third time: the time when you last went offline (the time of the last Fchat page load before that X minutes of inactivity). And the new posts are the posts made after the last time when you went offline. True? Former or latter?

Or is it yet something else???

 

Yes, and my experimentation seems to show this.

And I think Doody's going to agree with me on this... that is most unfortunate! Can we change that?

Let's say after a few hours, you come back to Fchat, starting as you always do by loading the forum list. Let's say it's 8:05pm when you do this. It shows you which forums have new posts (during the last few hours). Most likely, its either still 8:05 or maybe 8:06 when you hit the link for one of those forums. It loads up that page, showing you all the threads with new posts. You begin reading those one by one. Let's say you complete the reading of the 10 threads with new posts by 8:30. Now you don't load another Fchat page for a couple hours...

9:36 rolls around and you return to Fchat, load the forums list and then one of the forums. Each show you the new posts since your last visit. Two options:
1) If it shows you since your last visit STARTED (8:05), then it is entirely possible that it will show you a post made at 8:12 as new, even though you didn't get to that thread until 8:17, at which point you actually read that post. In other words, it may tell you more posts are new than really are.
2) If it shows you since your last visit ENDED (8:30), then it is entirely possible that it will show you a post made at 8:12 as not new, even though you read that thread at 8:09, at which point you could not possibly have read that post. In other words, it may tell you fewer posts are new than really are.

Which is better? I assert #1 is FAARRRR preferable to #2. With #1, I can reliably just read the new posts... I may start reading something I already read, but I very recently read such, so I won't waste too much time that way. In contrast, with #2, if I just read the new posts, I may miss some posts!! Thus, I in fact need to read some portion of posts that are not marked as new. But how many such posts?? Now my time waste is unbounded.

My best bet is to write down the time when each visit starts and do it manually... ick (but that is what I do!).

Soooo... any chance we can easily "fix" the forum to record the START of each visit as the "You last visited" time of the next visit??? Or at least get the new post computation doing that???

Thanks.