So, to break up the grind that is Work, I’ll pop on to Qt3 every few hours to read a few threads, mark the rest as read, and clear out the forums until they’re all “grey” and read. Thus, momentarily refreshed after about 10-15 minutes of this, I return to the grind.
But, I’ve noticed that at least once a day there’s this high-traffic point where I can’t read a category, mark it read, and clear out all the forums before one of the categories turns back to “yellow” because of all the posting that’s going on.
This is interesting in that it highlights one of my minor OCDs, in that I CANNOT return to work until I clear out every forum until they turn grey and they’re all marked read. Sometimes this can turn a quick 10-minute break into a 40-minute complete work slacking-off session, because I HAVE to make sure I’ve caught up on all the posts or have at least cleared out all the forums as “read”.
Am I completely off on this, or do other people act this way as well?
I do this about 4 times a day. Most times I do the same obsessive clearing of all topics until QT3 is entirely gray again, but if I’m having a busy day I can tear myself away.
edit - Though I do have a similar issue with IRC. If a channel goes red, I have to click on it to grey it out. Can be a pain if I’m in a bunch of busy channels.
Yeah, there are obviously worthless threads about, that’s for sure. Sometimes I just click them and immediately hit back to clear them. More often I will leave the undesirable threads to the end and then use the Mark All Topics Read button to purge them all in one guilty instant of thread cleansing.
I only log in when I’m 99% sure I’ll have enough time to read as much as I want. Because when you log out, phpBB automatically marks everything as “read” and I hate losing track of things.
Before and after work I go through the same habit. I’m glad I only play PC games, don’t watch much TV and don’t listen to music.
Where the guys in P+R find the time to read their articles before linking them, I don’t know.
Also, extra extra special OCD occurs in any thread that I post in. Probably it’s some paranoia that I’m going to post something blatantly stupid and that if I can’t jump back in to correct it promptly, an embarrassing train wreck will occur. A bit like Jose Liz.
i used to have the same “problem” as balut… used to, because when i quit logging in, all the “yellow” went away, and i didn’t feel i had to read everything. downside? i have to log in to post something- a rarity at any rate- and then log out before clicking the links to go back to the forum listings.
I work for a printing company so when the printers are going, that’s that. All I have to do is keep things running. Gives me plenty of time to catch up on stuff. Doesn’t hurt that the boss’s boss is a huge political junkie himself and we talk about this stuff all the time.
Not really obsessive about threads myself. I actually go into each forum and only look at threads that seem interesting with the exception of P&R where I’ve gotten, uh, a little obsessive at times. Since there are only so many a day elsewhere it’s pretty easy to keep track of which ones have a new post or two. Aside from P&R I spend time in the Games forum, natch, and only occasionally poke around elsewhere.
See, I tried this, but eventually started logging back in at work, 1) because I wanted to post occasionally, and 2) when I got home and logged in, I got annoyed reading the same posts I had just read from work, only I can’t tell because they’d still show up yellow from home.
I have got to the point where I can just close the browser on some yellow, but then I have to open a new browser, come back to the site, and see the all grey for my Go Back To Work signal. Otherwise I can get any actual work done.
I am glad you made this post. I thought I was the only sad one out here.
I used to read pretty much everything on here. Now I only read topics that sound interesting – there’s just way too much to keep up with on a daily basis. :?
Bull, if I understand you correctly, there’s a “Mark all forums as read” link between the forum list and the “Who’s Online” box that will save you the trouble of closing the browser and starting over.
I do this 3 times a day/evening. Otherwise you might miss something cool like the QT3 refrigderator, or a Jose Liz asslashing happening right in front of you.
