Howcum … sometimes the subject message appears when I go into a thread, and sometimes it doesn’t? Seems to not work both ways, too. When I’ve read everything, it’ll appear, then jump me to the end. Other times, when I’ve read some, but not all, the posts, it doesn’t appear.
Perhaps the folks in About This Message Board can help with this question. I’ll shoot the thread over there for you.
If you follow a link, some people know how to link to a particular post.
If you click on number 2 on a 2-page thread, you go to the middle of the thread.
If you have been reading to the middle and go somewhere else and hit the back button, it will reload the page and position you at the middle.
If it’s not one of those, then it must be something else. 
Thank you “Seen to it Already,” but none of those are really my problem. Typically I go to “New Posts” then click into a Thread I’ve been to before. Not being Mr. Memory, I usually don’t remember if the post count is the same, or has grown. When I get into the thread, sometimes the “Go To … Unread” is at the top. I click it, and it takes me to the very last post. Sometimes this is correct, I’ve read everything. Sometimes, the last one is unread (be me) so I start scrolling up, and find several I haven’t read.
Other times, I’ve been in a thread before, but no “Go To” link appears.
Sometimes, it works like it is supposed to, taking me to the first post I haven’t read.
Needless to say … I am confused.
The “first unread post” feature must work on a random basis. I just checked two threads, that have had posts since I last read /posted to them. One (speeding) had the “unread post” thingy, but it jumped me way beyond where I left off. The other (vouchers) didn’t have the “unread” clicker, but there was something after I posted/read, earlier today.
So … what’s up with this??
Mods, where is your insightful knowledge?
DISCLAIMER: This is one of those features which seems very erratic, and I don’t use it much in the first place. That said, I think that it just goes by the last time that you read the boards, not necessarily that particular thread, and assumes that you’ve read everything that was up at that moment. For many vB installations, this is probably reasonable: When you get 10 or 20 posts a day, most folks probably do read all threads. Here, though, nobody reads even a tenth of the posts, so the results become little better than random.
If you want to check with the software maker, their forum is at: ** http://vbulletin.com/forum/ **
It may have been reported before, or if not you can report it. (Be sure to say you are reporting about http://boards.StraightDope.com so they don’t check on some other board that may not exhibit the same symptoms.)