Usually when I go to a thread (sometimes from my email notice), I get a link at the top that says go to the first unread post. Other times, I don’t. Why don’t I get it all the time?
This is a double question, as long as I am here. When I search something on the SDMB, are the time spans (5 days, 30 days, etc.)based on the OP or the last post? It seems to me that it’s the date of the OP, as I’ve search for threads that I know had postings within the last ten days, but they don’t show up unless I give a longer search period.
barbitu8, I personally don’t know the exact answer to those questions, so I would have to use trial and error, which it seems you have already done in the case of your second question.
Perhaps you would get an exact answer if you went straight to the horse’s mouth: vBulletin Message Board
One of their fora is entitled “vBulletin 1.1.x Questions”. You can see by looking at the bottom of this page that at the SDMB we run vBulletin Version 1.1.3
If you do get an answer, it would be very considerate of you to post it in this thread.
#1 - VB keeps a date and time that it thinks is the last time you accessed the boards. If you notice on the forum page, the top threads will have a blue down arrow, and the rest of the threads won’t. The cutoff between those groups indicates what time VB thinks you last accessed the board and therefore what the “first unread post” is. Threads with a blue arrow will also have the link at the top of the page, threads that don’t, won’t.
I consider this completely useless (especially with the activity on this board) For instance, on weekends I often check MPSIMS only, and don’t get into GQ. But Monday morning GQ blue arrows will only go to the last time I went to MPSIMS.
#2 - the time span is based on the last post. Note that the time span is exactly 5 (10, whatever) days to the minute. This may explain why you aren’t seeing threads you expect to. If it is afternoon or evening, and the last post was in the morning ten days ago, it won’t be present in the search results.
I ran a (hum) [sub]ego search[/sub] the other morning and got three results. I ran the same search in the afternoon and only got two results. [sub]I was bored, ok?[/sub]