Hmmm....interesting. :) I must have been at the bottom of page 4 and not noticed that the thread went on to page 5... :o

So maybe this new system will force you to think before you hit the "Submit" button? :D (Or at least before navigating away from the thread -- I often edit my posts immediately after posting, but once i leave the thread, it's unusual for me to want to change anything.)

I wasn't questioning whether you read 30+ forums, but whether you read all of them, every FlyerTalk session. Really?!? :eek: is right! Get a life! ;)

Gosh, I didn't realize I needed your approval for using FlyerTalk the way that suits me.

I doubt it. :D

That's not really a "new" way of using FT. It's how I (and most others I know) have been using FlyerTalk for years. I have my settings set to subscribe (no email notification) to any thread I post in, since if I post in a thread, it's very likely I am interested in it (and want to follow up with responses to my post). Then I can track what happens with that thread in MyFlyerTalk and continue the dialog as appropriate.

If you're not already using FlyerTalk in this way, you should look into it--it helps you to keep track of conversations you're invested in.

If you do not like that they disappear, the simplest solution is to ignore MyFlyerTalk completely and simply use your list of subscribed threads--where they do NOT disappear. You can bookmark that page here and go straight to it:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/subsc...n&folderid=all

If you want more threads to be displayed on each page, try this URL:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/subsc...ost&order=desc

You can also access that (if you're in a place away from your bookmarks) by going to MyFlyerTalk and scrolling to the bottom of the list of subscribed threads and clicking View Subscribed Threads").

Thanks, jackal. Interesting advice.

I'll look into the settings link you mentioned.

I find that the older I get, the better I am able to distinguish improvement from mere change. This change fails to qualify as improvement for my usage pattern. As always, YMMV.

Wirelessly posted (goingaway\'s phone: BlackBerry8900/4.6.1.231 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

It's been awhile - given it a shot and still hate the 'enhancement'. I find myself arbitrarily pushing the mark forum(s) as read options, not because I have looked at what I wanted but because the sea of bolded messages lost all value for me and my usage patterns. For those that use handhelds, the my ft works better on the bb but then again, the system doesn't show all records just an arbitrary number that it knows, so in the end it doesn't fully work, either (I can have 22 threads on my ft off a pc, but only see a handful on the bb). - :td: from me still!

hah my flyertalk page is so long now as to be worthless.. just a sea of randomness. sigh.

I've given it more of a chance and am finding I like it less than I initially thought I would.

The only good thing I can see is that I am now able to jump into FT just to get the 1 piece of information without resetting My Flyertalk.

The downside is that My Flyertalk is sometimes huge. I've unsubscribed to some threads simply because I don't read them all the time, but wanted them on my list in the event I needed to find them quickly.

If I don't read a thread it remains bolded, which is getting annoying. Previously I simply looked for the first unbolded thread and started reading from there. I can't do this any longer.

I still don't trust marking the forum read since it marked all of them read. Perhaps I'll try again after I spend some time making sure I've read everything I'm interested in.

And yes, I still believe IB is getting more clicks (and $$$) from this. I find myself clicking on threads just to get rid of them.

I have been insanely busy these last three weeks (well over 50 hours a week at work putting together an Asterisk phone system in addition to my regular job).

Under the old system, I would have simply had to boycott FT for three weeks.

But I am absolutely LOVING the new system. I've been able to jump in when I have a couple minutes of downtime, contributing some thoughts or reading something that other FTers have mentioned (via Twitter, Facebook, email, etc.) that I should look at, without fear of "losing" my place. It's working absolutely flawlessly--from the five or six times I've logged in for just a few minutes to the hour I spent then beginning the process of catching up last week (of course, I'm behind again, but that's OK with this new system!).

I can't say enough how AWESOME this is!

I'm having a hard time understanding what you don't like about it. Marking the forum as read can't be any worse than the old system--in the old system, once you were inactive for a half hour or so, EVERYTHING on the entire board was marked as read, so you can't lose anything that you would have had under the old system by marking the forum as read.

You can basically mimic the old-school functionality by bookmarking the following links:

View All Subscriptions
Mark Forums As Read

Simply use the first link in place of MyFlyerTalk, and it will list all of your subscribed threads (whether you've read them or not). That's the same as the old MyFlyerTalk functionality. Then, use the second link when you're done using FlyerTalk for the day, and it will clear all of the bolded threads so that next time you log in, the only thing that is bolded is what is unread since your last visit.

If you do those two things, then you should have functionally the same experience as you did under the old system.

Rather than unsubscribing from those threads, move them to a different folder of subscriptions (I call mine "Bookmarked Threads"). Then, when you want to avoid seeing them in your list, use the following link to only view the threads you've subscribed to by replying to:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/subsc...php?folderid=0

This has the benefit of easier access to your list of reference threads--instead of having to search through your whole list of subscribed threads, you can just view that one folder of "Bookmarked Threads" and find what you're looking for.

jackal - you mean well, but you don't get others experiences, nor do you need to. Reiterating the same advice over and over again, won't make this new system any more palatable. Please just take it as read that this new functionality makes much of the intention totally useless for many of us and don't try to 'fix' it.

It is clear we all use the sytem differently, visit different types of forums (number and content) and have different expectations and uses for the boards. Your usage habits win with this 'enhancement' and for many of us, we 'lost'. I understand there is no going back, and as one of the earliest my flyertalk adopters (that was a true enhancement), I am well aware of the options and functionality available.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT that this is an outcome of this 'enhancement' and that IB is reaping the benefits of this BS move

I rather liked the way the old system assumed I didn't want to read threads
that I had passed up on the previous visit, marking everything as read. The
downside was when there was a momentary discontinuity in the connection,
all the flags had been updated when one returned.

That's one of the reasons I would use a different browser, without logging in, to check FT when I only had a few minutes here or there, or 30 mins in an airline lounge between flights. I didn't want to see all the forums appearing as if I had read them just because I had logged into My FlyerTalk.

I like the changes. In the morning I can pop in for an hour and read the 4 forums that interest me the most and mark them read. Later in the day I can explore other forums I have bookmarked. It gives me a great deal more flexibility than existed before.

It would be great if there was a user setting to tweak the settings that work best for each user (old versus new). I don't know anything about the underlying software to know if that's possible.