How do you navigate the forums?

[Pirotess]

I've noted comments from a number of people that seem to indicate different styles of reading and posting on the boards. I'd like to hear how each of you currently navigate as I believe some of you do it entirely different than I. The reason I ask this is because the board is largely setup with my method of navigation in mind which may be highly inefficient for the way some of you navigate. We'd like to fix that if possible since the easier a board is to use the more it will be used.

The way I navigate the boards revolves around the 'New Posts' link at the top of the navbar. These vBulletin boards actually track exactly what threads you have read and the last time you read them. The 'New post' search only will show posts that have been put in a thread since the last time you read the thread. In addition the black graphic of an arrow pointing down in a circle to the left of a thread title in the 'New Post' search will take you directly to the first post you havent read in the thread. So generally my process for reading the boards is to click the 'New Post' link at the top of the boards, then click the graphic next to a title and read the posts I havent seen yet. I then am at the bottom of the thread which makes the mini navigation bar just above the quick reply box visible. On that bar is a link to the 'New Post' search so I click that and repeat the process until I've read everything.

So now I've explained how I navigate, how do you navigate?

[Greymain]

Same as you though I missed the arrow to take me to first unread post.

[Bootstrap]

I usually browse the homepage and check out any interesting news. If there are interesting topics in the right side Recent Posts then I might go read the thread and respond. From there I would use either the tree control in the top nav to browse the forums or just click 'forums' in the top nav to see all of them. From there I would use the tree control if I drill down into a topic and want to get back out to the main forum page.

[Pirotess]

And actually I should expand this question a bit more. In addition to how you navigate the boards I should also ask how you feel about a reorganization of the forums to tighten up the main index and move things into sub-forums a bit more. At the same time we'd likely try to bring a more fantasy feel to the forums by renaming things like the 'News' forum 'The Herald'.

[Lycrist]

The new naming system would include subtext to clearly indicate the real use of the forum, if I'm on the same page as Piro.

Ex:

The Herald
News/Announcement Discussion

[Greymain]

all ok at the moment but things will get real lively once the offical forums close. So better to undertake any refinements soon rather than later.

[Lycrist]

Very true, Greymain; mainly why we want to do this now, if ever.

[Cobalt Katze]

I always look at the "New Posts: ##" text below my avatar, and click on it if there's a number greater than 0. Then I go into the thread and read

[Arctic_Slicer]

I usually look at the right side navigation for threads most recently posted in. I rarely click the forums link.

[Pirotess]

That only shows the last 10 or 15 threads though. Once the forum takes off its going to be hard to keep up using that.