Colour Coding Thread Titles Explain Irregularity

About This Message Board
1

Ninety percent of the time when I open a thread or start a thread, the forum page title changes from blue print to grey print alerting me that I’ve opened this thread before. But some threads and it seems some threads that I’ve started stubornly resist the print colour change.

People can get lax or make mistakes following protocols, but I expect computers to be consistent. What gives?

2

I do not seem to be experiencing the problem you are. So I’m of no help but I just wanted to let you know it doesn’t seem to be universal or else it should be happening to me too.

3

It’s controlled by your browser, not the website.

4

Could it be that someone is posting right after you/simulposting, so it is new since you clicked the link, and thus shows correctly as unread?

Are you refreshing the page, or using the back button? Back takes you to the screen it loaded, not reloading.

Are you checking from different computers?

5

It’s the browser (or possibly your internet connection going flakey—though I doubt this). It happens all the time for me as well, and not just this site. I just live with it.

6

It also matters if you click on the thread title, or on the icon next to it to go to the first new post…they are different links, and get tracked differently.

-D/a

7

To summarize:

  1. The color change indicates a link that has been visited.

  2. The exact color is controlled by your browser.

  3. Two links that wind up at the same page but are coded slightly differently are considered different, and clicking one link will not change the color of the other.

This used to be the case with the thread page numbers. The ones on the forum topic page had two parameters reversed relative to the thread page numbers within a thread.

Here is an example of that specific situation. Assuming you have never been to the page, both links should appear blue. Click on one of them and it will turn gray, but the other will stay blue, even though they go to the exact same page.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?page=6&t=618021
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=618021&page=6