The Straight Dope that is. Do you have a routine for checking forums? Do you subscribe to threads? Do you often search for terms that interest you? What are your thoughts on “vanity searches”? What method works best for you?
Personally, I’ve only ever subscribed to a few threads ever. I usually stay confined to IMHO, MPSIMS, CAfe Society and GQ, I can’t even remember that last time I visited the Pit. If I see an interesting thread I’ll hover first to get the gist, and if it looks interesting I right click and open it in a new tab. When I get to the threads I’ve already seen in that forum, I start checking out the tabbed threads and either posting or just closing them.
My preferred method for finding posts I’ve contributed in is to do an advanced search on my username across all forums. I don’t consider that as being a vanity search since I’m only looking for threads I’ve recently replied to. Every once in a great while I will search for my name as a keyword to see if it has been mentioned somewhere. It almost never is, outside of a few of the threads I have been active in. I consider this to be a “vanity search”.
I rarely use the “find all posts by this user” even for my own name, because I’m usually more interested in the thread itself rather than one person’s posts across all threads.
What else? I use the forum jump at the lower right beneath every forum to switch forums, but I sometimes click on the Straight Dope Message Board link in the upper left and choose a forum from there.
I’m sure there are a ton of features I could be using to maximize the experience, I just may not know about them. So how do you guys do it?
I really hope this doesn’t get exiled to ATMB where it will wither and die. It’s not about policy, just opinions and techniques on usage, right?