Methods of use of forums.

[RAK]

How do users operate when they visit this forum (or any other)
I have never posed a question, so regard myself as being in a "help" category. To merely select "New Posts", unless you are a very prolific poster, with time on your hands, can reveal a mass of material, a lot of which, if one is honest, the user rends to skip over without opening.
I, like many, have quite a few forums in my bookmarks. Several of these are being totally swamped by material which, in my particular case, is totally irrelevant.
In order to "get through the day", I worked out a system which, with practise, is not time consuming and gets the subject matter revealed in a summarised format. I have noticed, however, that there is a trend to post links as help, instead of opening a more friendly and informal dialogue.
As I see it, posting links indicates that any intelligent computer user, could browse for his answer anyway, and not even bother to use forums.
First thing I do is click Windows Rumours and news forum entries. I get this material through other news sources, so have no need for it. I then select the "Forum Tools" option and mark the forum as read.
I do the same with Security Zone and the Water cooler.
This eliminates about 70% of the "New Posts" and allows me to view the remainder more comfortably.
The "Open topic" forum, I keep at the moment. It has a tendency to merge its contents with the Water Cooler, but still has interesting chat items.

[cybercore]

First thing I do is click Windows Rumours and news forum entries. I get this material through other news sources, so have no need for it. I then select the "Forum Tools" option and mark the forum as read.
I do the same with Security Zone and the Water cooler.
This eliminates about 70% of the "New Posts" and allows me to view the remainder more comfortably.

Good info, I often do the same, thanks.

[RAK]

Thanks. It is not unique to this site. Two of (imo) the best sites on the web, have other methods of categorising. The best, on entry, you can select, for example "Windows 7" , this, obviously, takes you to that specific choice, if that is your major interest. Both mentioned, have on average several hundred new posts over a span of 12 hours, so it would be impossible to look through them all.