# What controls the time that threads become "old"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-controls-the-time-that-threads-become-old/385786>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [December 27, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-controls-the-time-that-threads-become-old/385786 "2006-12-27T20:31:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-controls-the-time-that-threads-become-old/385786/1 "2006-12-27T20:31:06Z")

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Searched but didn’t find an answer. After I’m on the boards for a while, my timestamp gets updated and threads get the “no new posts” icon, even if I haven’t got to them yet. When does that happen?

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2006, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-controls-the-time-that-threads-become-old/385786/2 "2006-12-27T21:17:15Z")

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If you don’t load any pages during a specified period of time, even if you have page open already, the board software logs you out. It seems to be somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes; an admin could tell you the specific timeout duration. If you load a page after that occurs, your SDMB cookie logs you back in and all threads which were last active before you were logged out are then marked as read. There is no outward sign that either logout or the login have happened–it’s all done in the background and is completely transparent to the user.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2006, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-controls-the-time-that-threads-become-old/385786/3 "2006-12-27T21:26:27Z")

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Excuse me, there is _one_ outward sign: Your “last visited” time will be updated. In the top right corner just above the menu bar, it will say:

> [@](#):
>
> Welcome, NoCoolUserName.  
> You last visited: Today at xx:xx PM

Look for it to change if you wander away from the computer for a while and come back later.

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**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2006, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-controls-the-time-that-threads-become-old/385786/4 "2006-12-27T23:17:58Z")

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[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]  
Excuse me, there is _one_ outward sign: Your “last visited” time will be updated. In the top right corner just above the menu bar, it will say:

Look for it to change if you wander away from the computer for a while and come back later.  
[/QUOTE]  
Also look for various posts snickering about your strong emotional ties to domestic animals.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-controls-the-time-that-threads-become-old/385786/5 "2006-12-28T01:20:40Z")

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Poor **Hal** is never going to live that down, it would seem. 😃