# Straight Dope on  how posts eventually (?) get flagged as read?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-on-how-posts-eventually-get-flagged-as-read/489411>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [March 14, 2009, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-on-how-posts-eventually-get-flagged-as-read/489411 "2009-03-14T12:39:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2009, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-on-how-posts-eventually-get-flagged-as-read/489411/1 "2009-03-14T12:39:29Z")

</div>

? mark because I just went to GQ-okay no problem. Back to main menu, go into GD, all of a sudden every post in the forum has now been reset to “read”, even though I haven’t been here 5 minutes yet. And what machinations/rituals do I need to do when it’s working like it supposed to, and I want to keep all remaining posts unread as long as possible? If I click on something every 5 minutes or less do the read tags not flip? Is there a timer which starts when you enter the forums and when the timer runs out every post goes to read status? A mixture of all of the above?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-on-how-posts-eventually-get-flagged-as-read/489411/2 "2009-03-15T03:57:33Z")

</div>

Happens to me, too, especially if my response in one thread is rather lengthy. When I go back into New Posts or a forum, suddenly everything is tagged as Read even if I never opened any of it.