So far I have only noticed this in MPSIMs. Normally, the links to various threads are blue. However, once in a while, one of the links shows up as a different color (basically a different shade of blue, but easily noticeable.) These aren’t threads I have clicked on at any point.
Wanderlust, your post, however informative, does not provide an answer to the question posted in the OP. Mullinator, I have also noticed that occasionally a non-visited link on a forum page will show up in a different shade of blue than other non-visited links. I have never attempted to determine the reason behind this; however, since the pages are not static, but generated by the vBulletin sofware, I am guessing that the reason is that some special condition will cause the software to label a link differently (special condition = “bug” or “feature” in computer lingo).
Next time I notice that I’ll peak at the HTML source and see if I can figure out anything, but most probably, after viewing the source I will just scratch my head and eat another peanut whilst mumbling “Huh?” without any further intellectual flash of genius to explain this mystery.
OK then, well right now when I go to General Questions I see this unvisited link showing up in a different shade of blue:
«When will Timothy McVeigh be executed?»
As predicted, I read the source code and said “Huh?” I don’t see anything in there to explain that behaviour.
My set-up:
MacOS 9.0.4, Netscape 4.7
Of course, when I now click on the “General Questions” link in my previous post, I no longer see that thread in a different shade of blue.
Since I wanted to read those posts, I’m going to go click on the link now, which will prevent any further experiments (at least with that thread), so you’re on your own Wanderlust.
I’ve seen the same thing; in fact, Achernar commented about it in this thread a few months ago. Don’t think there was ever a definative answer, other than remarking that it looked like a Netscape problem.