# Way forums are marked as read



## Drew (Jan 23, 2006)

This option controls how threads and forums are marked as read.

Scroll to bottom for brief description in plain English!

We switched from...



> Inactivity/Cookie Based - once a user has been inactive for a certain amount of time (the value of the session timeout option) all threads and forums are considered read. Individual threads are marked as read within a session via cookies.


To this...



> Database (automatic forum marking) - this option is the same as a previous option, but forums are automatically marked as read when the last new thread is read.
> 
> This is the most usable option for end users, but most processor intensive.


In plain English...

The old way meant that a forum was marked as read automatically just because you logged in, logged out and logged back in. Or visited the site, left and came back hours later, even if you never actually viewed any threads.

The new way means that a forum won't be marked as read until you've read all the threads in that forum (threads older than 10 days are ignored) or clicked "Mark Forums Read".

This is more intensive on the server, so we are going to be testing it and see if it has a significantly negative effect on the speed of page loads at peak times. Please let me know if you notice that the site is slower.

Part of the reason we switched was for improved user experience, the other part was because an increasing number of members are getting errors while surfing the site.

Any feedback is welcome!

Thanks,
Drew

Edit: To make this new tracking easier, I've added Mark Forums Read and Mark This Forum Read links to the upper right when you are logged in.

*Edit 2: If you find it overwhelming that there are 10 days of "unread" posts that you actually have already read (as a result of switching over to this new setting), then click the Mark Forums Read button at the top right on the forum homepage. It will mark all forums and all threads as read and you'll only see new posts from that moment on as unread.*


----------

