Hi Don,
I understand your frustration, and you haven't gone unheard, but there are a couple of things I feel I must make clear with regard to the Forum.
The Forum is a free service that is offered to both paying and non-paying customers. Given our limited resources (Kalmbach owns 14 magazines, each drawing from the same pool of technical professionals), often the priorities for the FSM Forum don't rank as high as, say, the relaunch of Discover's website or the launch of Model Railroader Video Plus. We are also limited because of the software vendor and what we are allowed to do to the product's coding. FSM does the best it can with the limited resources it is allotted.
Specifically, with regard to the "mark all read," recent, and unread issues, I have had many conversations over the last few weeks (in person and via email) with our online department trying to get the best answer I can for you. I have been quiet on this front because I wanted to have a complete picture to offer and possible remedies.
Here it is: You can't choose which threads in forums appear read or unread. The system is supposed to filter this automatically when you click to view a thread. If you're logged in when you view the thread, the system is supposed to flag it to your account as being opened, and thus being read.
The logic telling the system when a thread is read or unread may be corrupt, or at the very least, sporadic. The system only flags a thread as read when you view it. If a reply is made, even though there is new activity, it would still appear in the "read" area because you've already opened the thread. The new activity would appear in the "recent" tab because of the new activity. Read and unread apply only to threads, not their replies.
If the read/unread feature is not helpful to you, our best suggestion is that you stop using it and rely on the recent activity area instead.
Until the Forum is redeveloped again, that's the best that we can offer on this particular front. Your previous error complaints and suggestions have been logged so that they can be shared with our software vendor.
If you have any more questions regarding this, please email me directly at tkidwell@finescale.com or give me a call at 262-796-8776 ext. 230 and we can talk about it.
Regards,
Tim
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