"New posts since last visit"?!

[KeLviN]

also interested. Happy to help. I want to promote the forums at DC this year but am afraid of sending people to a forum with software that doesn't feel familiar to visitors .... Don't even know if anything can be done...

[TheCotMan]

I suppose if someone wants to know how ot hack something, or what 2600 means, or what defcon is, they can always use google. And google may not always bring folks here. When I started attaneind Defcon google was just another seach engine, like Ask Jeeves or Dogpile. Yahoo was still king. There is no way we can compete with google.

Back in the 80's and early 90's, the probability you might find someone that has been hacking much of anything in the computer/network space was very small; computers were expensive and few parents could afford such toys for their kids. Dot-Com ramp-up starting around mid 90's and recognized usefulness of computers made them more widely available. 2000's, computers for college students and even many high school students were required. Then around 2010's, computer were hand-held in phones, and cheap enough to be consumed by the masses.

As the number of people exposed to technology has increased, the number of people into technological hacking has increased, and the older problem of having trouble trying to find someone else, anyone else, interested in some form of technological hacking has become less of an issue.

Now, 25 years since the first DEF CON, not only is there an abundance of "hacking" happening, there is specialization in areas that never even existed in the 90's. When a person wants to learn about hacking anything, their first step would probably be google, where they do not search for "hacking" but instead "what are the steps needed to root my iPhone?" Maybe they spend their 10,000 hours to learn about rooting iPhones and exploring them, and keeping up with each release to tinker with the hardware, and write their own software. What do they know about a PBX? "Phreaking" ? Crypto and the math behind it? Building botnets and controlling them? Tor networks? Specialization leads to people establishing social interactions with people in their fields, and this focus on specialization and their own social networks and systems for communicating ideas. They will use those same methods of communication when discussing things like DEF CON.

The boom in wide-spread use of technology by increasing percents of the population over the last 3 decades is also reflected in the size of DEF CON. When was the last time anyone could talk about the DEF CON family they had, and refer to a significant percent of attendees?

This fracturing of one group into many different groups has also been seen in a microcosm of the history of the Toxic BBQ. The first were cozy, with a majority of people knowing each other, and inviting new-comers. At some point, the number of people that do not know a majority of people attending is greater than those that know most attendees, and eventually, there are formations of different groups of people staying at their own tables, with a few people they met or knew before.

This is what I have seen online. A person in some online group mentions they will go to DEF CON, a bunch of their friends come with them, and they mostly hang out with each other.

DEF CON is not one track and has not been for a long, long time. There is not only space dedicated to Contests and Events, but there are people that attend DEF CON to just participate in one contest or event, and I am not just writing about CTF.

After watching my habits on other forums this last week, the first and only button i use is 'posts since last visit'. Obviously security is a priority for DCF, but i think people have mentioned that not having it kills the experience. i'm still trying the test-x button.

And the culture is the draw. that's why critical mass is so important.

Ok, I will accept the culture can be a draw for, "normal people," just as people visit zoos to observe creatures in their "natural" habitat. (Not really natural habitat.)

The next time you are at DEF CON, ask people why they came, if this is their first time, and if they will return. In my informal check, most people were first-timers, and came to learn something. None of the people I asked questions about attending DEF CON answered with "to be part of the culture" or "to observe the culture."

I would like to have a functional "Since Last Visit" link that works, but prefer to rely on something built-into the forum software. (more on this later in the next reply.)

I clicked the SLV-TEST-X button just now and it listed all the posts since March 3rd. Does it go back a month? Anyhow it is not a replacement for the "new posts since last visit" button at all. I even searched for SLV-TEST-X and got zero results. Not that forum searching was ever worthwhile.

So, Cot, what would it take to get the "New posts since last visit" button back? A petition? $1,000 to the programmer? New forum software?

As for the need for such a button, yes I recognize the desire to have one. I have missed it. I've suffered with the search options to find "this week's activity" and "the last 24 hours of activity" but they are no replacement for the original "posts since last visit." I spent some time looking into what would be needed to provide support for this, and it was not trivial. We would need to leverage end-user cookie information, alter the DB to include a table with more data to support it, add hooks to the thread/post viewer that read user selections and track their visited posts, and then can be used to generate a search per-user. If this is not enough work, then the greater burden of re-integrating and testing it with each DataBase, php, web server, and forum software update, often with little time for urgent security updates. This would then suggest building an SVT test system with test script and reintegration scripts to validate the function of services, and check for likely security issues. Last, there is a risk for mistakes -- no matter how security conscious a developer may be, they will make mistakes, and some of those mistakes will eventually result in compromise.

It is not just a "one-time expense of labor" but an on-going cost. I have several other customizations to support the custom styles and the dark background with light text, that the vendor does not support. The more we diverge from the vendor's code base, the greater the cost with each upgrade. I do not work forums as a full-time job. I have my "real" job outside of this volunteer work to pay my bills.

astcell would you like to take on the responsibility of building an maintaining custom code to support this and maintain it for each upgrade, and be "on the hook" for if/when someone finds a vulnerability in your code? This kind of pressure can help you to make solid code, but will likely mean you will spend even more time to make sure it really is "perfect" before you release or change it.

also interested. Happy to help. I want to promote the forums at DC this year but am afraid of sending people to a forum with software that doesn't feel familiar to visitors .... Don't even know if anything can be done...

I do not know what can be done either. I've tried many things, and asked for suggestions.

In other news, based on feedback from the last test "SLV-TEST-X" I've revised it a bit to "SLV-TEST-Y" but have not found an easy way to move beyond ~30 days. We might be able to include a date range which is dynamic. Maybe this can be leveraged in a per-user basis.

Please try "SLV-TEST-Y" and let me know how it sucks, and how it works, and what can be changed, if anything, to improve it.

A feature this is missing compared to the older "since last visit" ? This one just shows the last post in the thread that has had activity, while the older one (before upgrade) would generate a link to the specific post that each user has not read in the thread, so each user could follow their link, and continue in the thread where each user last left reading.

[astcell]

I had a Rat Shack Model 100 in 1983 or 1984. Had airtime on Compuserve thanks to the introductory discounts, I simply bought every one I could possible find. Then in 1987 got my hands on an IBM Clamshell and when Prodigy came about I was more than ready.

In the middld of those two PCs I was blessed with a job involving computers. I got my nose in and never looked up. And I am so glad I am not alone.

Back then hacking was not in the news. I don't even think hacking was a word, nor software. Today everyone know what hacking is thanks to the san Bernardino iPhone and a few snazzy but highly inaccurate TV shows like Scorpion and CSI:Cyber.

THe TBBQ is one example but I am sure most if not all of the events at Defcon are related to something that got started very small and grew. Tamper Evident Contest, Gringo Warrior, thre are so many that did not exist in the past. Some like Robot Wars had set expiration dates so as to force us to move forward. They tried getting rid of Hacker Jeopardy this way. That one was too big.

I came to my first Defcon to be a sponge and learn everything I could. I met others with the same feeling. They learned, and left. But I stayed. I stayed because it was my culture. Like being the only Emo at a Catholic school and then finding that all the other Emos in the world hang out across the road from you not 100 feet away. Defcon is my home.

So if they do not stay, that is fine, they are not part of the culture and that is fine. I have a work culture too, it's what I get paid to do. I don't get paid for Defcon, I pay for it. Big difference.

Sorry I cannot code the button myself, that is not my skillset.

SLV-TEST-Y gives the same results, going back to 3-3-16.

[TheCotMan]

So if they do not stay, that is fine, they are not part of the culture and that is fine. I have a work culture too, it's what I get paid to do. I don't get paid for Defcon, I pay for it. Big difference.

Yeah, it is a huge difference.

Imagine you are a 16 year old in today's society, and your parents bought you a smartphone, a tablet, and maybe you can share access to their desktop, but because it is in a family-available area, that your siblings share, you realize you can spy on your siblings and their social network use, and realize they could do the same to you, so you prefer to just limit your use to the equipment that is dedicated to you.

What would be your interest in exploring the technology and what would you want it to do? Much of hacking begins with, "this is okay, but it would be really nice if it could do $something_else, so how can I make it do that?" Needs or wants drive a great deal of exploration. So, what would you need/want? Come up with a small list. Next, consider what google searches you would use to learn more about how you could accomplish what you want.

Now reflect on that. Do any of those searches likely result with the DEF CON forums?

If we had more technical discussions here, we could be draw more users, as a result of people finding us through google searches, but we historically punished people for asking tech support questions, and "how do I 'hack' my phone?" or similar questions. All of the rules we have established pretty much limit the DEF CON forums to DEF CON planning, and social discussion for the few people left using it.

I'm not sure what to try next.

Sorry I cannot code the button myself, that is not my skillset.

It is something I've worked on in the past, and it is not trivial since the change to the forums and the way their new search system works.

SLV-TEST-Y gives the same results, going back to 3-3-16.

Ok. I have a new test, "SLV-TEST-K" and it sucks in a big way, but gets us kind-of, half-way there.

This should show unread *threads* (aka "topics") since last login, but this is not unread posts. What this means:
* I create a new thread
* You search for new threads since last visit and find my thread
* You visit my thread, and then leave, or logout whatever, but do not visit it again.
* I re-visit my thread and reply to it. It now has a new post, but it is a thread you have read.
* You repeat your search, and the thread does not show up even though it has a new post in it.

Useless , no?

To make things even more complicated, the new software has a "reply" to a post that they call a comment, which is not a new post, and it appears nested immediately under the post it is a reply to, even if there are other posts after the post being replied to. Assume we do find a way to show threads with new posts since last visit, and give links to jump to the new post... what about comments? Ignore them? Disabling comments might work if they are a problem.

[Added:]
I've made some more changes. First, what is read and not read has been moved from cookies to just the DB. This will impact performance, but I do not know how much. Doing this should give cross-device support for read vs. unread threads/posts per account.

In order for this to work, you may need to logout, clear cookies for "forum.defcon.org", then login again.

You may also experience bugs with results not including all expected items, or including items it should not, until you select the "mark all channels read" and start over. This will likely lose any recent unread items, marking everything as read, so do not do this until you are finished experimenting with the new searches.

This cost addresses one issue on filtering based on unread per-user.

Next, we have new options that allow items returned to not just include new threads/topics, but also include replies and comments.

I've still not found a way to deal with the "more than 30 days" limit for searches since last visit. I have found one thing that might help, and have changed it, but it will take a while for it to work.

However, check out the newly added "Unread SLV" (Unread threads/topics, posts, comments since last visit) and "SLV" (Threads/topics, posts, comments since last visit, read or unread.)

These do not appear to be as reliable as I would like.

Additionally, if there is a busy thread with lots of posts since your last visit, each post shows up a unread since your last visit, but if you visit ANY post in a that thread, then re-try your search, all of the other unread are considered read. Granularity on "read" appears to be at the thread level. (In the old forum software, you would only see the first post in a new thread, and when you jumped to it, you could continue from there to read all other content since that first post made since you visited the thread.

To see an example of this, assuming you came here first, try the "Unread SLV" and you should see my /dev/null thread with 4 posts all in the same thread. If you visit any one of those posts in search, it will count as having read all of them.

Suggestions for names? We want it short for mobile devices, and low-resolution computers.
"Show Unread"?
"Recent Activity"?

Should these replace our present "New Topics" and "Todays Posts" for logged-in users?

[astcell]

Granted today's online world is bigger but not necessarily better. Theose of us who love Defcon are left unsatisfied with Twitter and FB. That's why 2600 magazine is still out, in person cons thrive, and the Raspberry Pi is so uber popular. The Forums have lost the ability to stay connected for some reason. Maybe it is all the spam, maybe it is the last post button. Doesn't matter. Let the historians delve into that, we need to move forward.

Today's searches do not produce forum results, obviously. They used to though. I remember well.

Definitely "Show unread."

[TheCotMan]

Ok, I have settled on 3 searches in the NAV bar, and installed them as new defaults; your feedback is welcomed and encouraged. (The ones we were testing have all been removed from their locations, and new searches based on feedback from these created at the far left of the nav-bar.)

Details: NONE of these work for "guest" users -- they are only for users with accounts.
* "Recent Activity" : This (presently) searches for new : Topics/Threads, Posts, or Comments as "new" in the last 14 days. It does not matter if you have read them or not, and it does not matter if they were available since your last visit. This is a simple search -- no user data is required. This should work the most reliably for the most numbers of logged-in users.
* Unread Content : This relies upon a change from cookie-based storage of visited content per account. It is more reliable (from testing) than cookie-based storage, but cookie-based storage allows end users to suffer tiny amounts of increase disk space use distributed over many devices, while the more reliable DB-based tracking of read vs. unread posts will increase the space used by the DB, and is a risk for privacy issues -- if we are tracking read vs. unread content per users, then that data is something we are keeping for users, and that can become an inviting target for law enforcement, if they find a "person of interest" has an account here, and they want to see their history. I do not like using the DB for this, but it appears to be working much better than the cookie-based system, and allows read vs. unread to work per account across multiple devices. I'll have to discuss with Jeff the prospects of leaving it this way. Maybe the next forum software update will address some of the observed issues with cookie-based post-history. (?) Also, this has an issue shared with the next (See "SHARED ISSUE" at the end.)
* Since-Last-Visit : This is a bit more mercurial. "Since Last Visit" is the most buggy, and has the greatest risk for user complaints. What counts as "last visit" ? From what I read, if a user logs-out, and then logs-in, then the login is guaranteed to be a "new visit" and everything before the new login is considered "since last visit" up to a point. This point appears to be a number of days that the DB uses as a cut-off to stop tracking this. Next, a "last visit" can be triggered by inactivity with a live session. Consider: you login, read a few forums, and then start to compose a reply. Your reply takes a while, and you spend more time on your reply than the per-session expiration, so the forums considered your session is over. Then, you decide to finally finish your post, and click post/submit. Your local machine's cookies still have you "logged in" with an active authentication token, which is valid, but from the forum-side, the session you started posting from is different from the session you actually clicked submit to post the message. As a result, if you click the "Since-Last-Visit" after your session times out, then it will only show you new content since either when you started composing your post, or when your session expired. The old forum software had this problem too. If a person posted content before your session expired, then that content was visible when your session was live, so it would not be displayed if you asked for content "since your last visit". This risks you not being informed of content.


** "SHARED ISSUE" : Since granularity in "read" vs. "unread" and "since last visit" are at the thread/topic level -- if a thread/topic has 10 new posts/comments, and you follow one of the 10 results returned (most recent are at the top of the list of returned results) then you "enter" the thread with new content later than the first post made to the thread since your last visit. When you then revisit a search "Unread Content" or "Since-Last-Visit" links to other content in that same thread may not be displayed. I can alter the search results for both to return them in order from oldest to newest, to avoid this, but is that what would be wanted for these two searches? Having oldest first seem counter-intuitive to use, but using "newest first" has greatest risk for users missing new content if they start at the top of the returned matches. Thoughts?

All of theses searches share a "compact view" which supports an inline "See More" which does not appear to count towards having viewed the contents (post, comment, or thread/topic.) The "See More" expands the post, taking better advantage of the space of screen real-estate.

I know that "Since-Last-Visit" is going to be buggy for the items described above, and others which I have observed, but not identified cause, or found correlation to suggest cause.

"Unread Content" is less buggy , but not as reliable as the simple "Recent Activity"

Your feedback on these "new" search links is welcome. If you find bugs with any of these and you can establish a correlation between the presence of the bug, and circumstances that allow you to duplicate it, please report these!

These 3 search links now displace the other search links that were previously established.

I think they will work if you bookmark them too.

Positive and negative feedback is welcome.

Thanks!
-Cot

[TheCotMan]

On twitter I announced these searches as available to logged-in forum users and the defcon twitter account has retweeted it.

I'll also notify dc-stuff for the few that still use that.

-Cot

[TheCotMan]

"Since-Last-Visit" is too buggy and has been removed.

"recent activity" and "unread content" remain.

[TheCotMan]

Changed "Unread Posts" from descending to ascending so oldest unread are displayed first, decreasing risk of missing new content in a thread by visiting a more recent post in the same thread which would mark all previous unread posts as read.

[HighWiz]

Many of the people who used to interact on these forums have moved on to other avenues of communication, things change... Twitter is a good example.

The people that I communicate with... My friends.. They aren't here anymore. So why would I be? Publicly or Privately I have other places that I interact with those people on, so why come to the defcon forums? At this point, I view the forums as a place where there is (public) discussion of the Planning for defcon, but that's about it. Even then, I'm probably going to get better information about contests and events from an individual groups Twitter/Facebook. And I don't blame those contents and events, they get much greater dispersal of their messages via those mediums as opposed to this forum.

I think CotMan does a very nice job of keeping the forums alive, but I don't believe they serve the same purpose they once did.

[astcell]

"Unread posts" works however it still goes way back in time. It retreieved 8 pages for me and only the first two were new posts. Also an it bring up the last read post in a thread intead of the Cot: same thread with each individual post listed?

HW: Yes I think the fact that contests and other events have their own pages is wonderful. it shows the growth they have, and those not interested at all in a certain event do not need to go through dozens of threads that are not of interest. However I do believe the two can exist side by side.

This is the spot be at for ride or room shares. It also seem to be the first spot that foreigners "land" when planning for Defcon. These forums may no longer be a general catch-all for all hacker related materials, but they do serve a purpose.

[TheCotMan]

Many of the people who used to interact on these forums have moved on to other avenues of communication, things change... Twitter is a good example.

This is what I have observed. Dial-up BBS, USENET, IRC, though some people still use these, the general population has moved on to other stuff.

The next surge in web forum use will probably come whatever generation has a sub-group that wants to use them ironically, or the same way modern people visit, "Renaissance Faires."

The people that I communicate with... My friends.. They aren't here anymore. So why would I be? Publicly or Privately I have other places that I interact with those people on, so why come to the defcon forums? At this point, I view the forums as a place where there is (public) discussion of the Planning for defcon, but that's about it. Even then, I'm probably going to get better information about contests and events from an individual groups Twitter/Facebook. And I don't blame those contents and events, they get much greater dispersal of their messages via those mediums as opposed to this forum.

Yeah, specialization. People have a limited scope of interest, and want full-speed, no-distractions access to those that are well informed on those topics. Cross-pollination is less likely, and risk for echo-chamber and mono-culture within specialization is greater.

I think CotMan does a very nice job of keeping the forums alive, but I don't believe they serve the same purpose they once did.

Thanks man! I agree; they don't. People do not have time for forums; maintenance of their facebook and other social networks takes free time; why does it get priority? Most of their friends are there, and acceptance or avoiding ostracism of their peers is more important to them.

You are in that age group where the number of people you call "friend" is probably shrinking, to the point where the few you have left, you are really close to; you don't see any need to change who you are to be accepted. (Though, IIRC, you did not have this "problem" back in the early days of the forums, either. :-)

"Unread posts" works however it still goes way back in time. It retreieved 8 pages for me and only the first two were new posts. Also an it bring up the last read post in a thread intead of the Cot: same thread with each individual post listed?

Yep, I mentioned this as one of those bugs in earlier posts. I know I post too much to read, but I try to be thorough.

The forum software whether using cookies or the DB to track read and unread only has capacity and granularity to work at the "topic" or "thread" level.

Reading ANY post in a thread will mark all posts and comments in that thread as "read".

If you click on the most recent post in a thread which has 8 unread posts, you are taken to the last post to read.

If you do not scroll back to see what you missed, and don't have the old search still open, the next time you click on "Unread Posts" all of the older posts are no longer listed! (Because you visited the thread, and recognition of what is read and what is not read works on the thread level.)

So, if we sort "Unread Posts" such that the top items returned are the oldest, and a person starts from the top o the returned results, then they can start at the first new content in the thread and scroll down to the end to see what else they missed. Then, when they return to "unread content" ALL posts/comments in that thread are marked as read and removed from the next search.

If we reverse the results order for this, people will miss new content in a thread that has more than one new post since their last visit.

If the age of these bothers you, then "Mark Forums Read" is an option for you! Then all the really old stuff is marked as read, and the next visit will only show you the items added snce your last visit and/or when you marked them, "all read."

HW: Yes I think the fact that contests and other events have their own pages is wonderful. it shows the growth they have, and those not interested at all in a certain event do not need to go through dozens of threads that are not of interest. However I do believe the two can exist side by side.

This is the spot be at for ride or room shares. It also seem to be the first spot that foreigners "land" when planning for Defcon. These forums may no longer be a general catch-all for all hacker related materials, but they do serve a purpose.

Ride and room shares is a good example. A person with a small number of friends on facbook, or followers on twitter can first ask those people that know them if they are going to DEF CON. A person is more likely going to choose to room with someone they know as reasonable is more likely than a stranger they don't know much about if they have only those two to choose from.

When "hackers" were an extreme minority, and people had trouble finding even one in their high school, forums could work well, establishing a common place for people to find each other, when nobody else they know is much like them at all.

Now, hacking is applied to nearly everything to the point we have "life hacks" published by entities, even though many are common sense or minor tricks.

Consider:
https://twitter.com/LifeHacks

How to pack? How to drink (booze)? Who to date by zodiac sign? (These are among the most recent tweet topics in this account in the last 12 hours or so.) Some of these are poorly fact-checked, or are closer to entertainment than useful information. Sometimes I wonder if accounts like these are just for entertainment and trolling.

[I am not complaining that hacking as a term has become 'watered down' or 'hacking is not as good as it once was.' Cultures change. Languages evolve. Definitions of words change.]

[Deviant Ollam]

i am not seeing "since last visit" but the format of the "recent activity" feature is still pretty poor, for me.

i would love to log in, easily click one link or menu command, and see the following...

1. activity since my last visit consisting of threads with unread posts
2. see them listed in a SHORT form (not showing the content of the posts, just the names of the threads)
3. the results list should show me what sub-forum they are in (i'm not going to read a DCGroup sub-forum for Indonesia, even if there are unread posts there)
4. there should be an easy click link or button to jump directly to where the unread stuff (since my last visit) is starting

... if i have that, i'd be on the forums a LOT more, i think.

many of us would.

EDIT: ah, i see the "unread content" feature now. results list is way, way too big on the screen, however. no need for the content of posts to be in the results list.

EDIT AGAIN: the "unread content" results page appears to show a separate entry for every new post in a given thread. also needless. if there's a thread somewhere about "inflatable dongs for the pool party" and since my last visit (a) WarezJoe comments and then (b) 303Panda comments and then (c) WarezJoe replies and then (d) a mod says "keep it on topic, people" and then (e) DT comments "i think we can order those" and then (f) Nikita comments "we are not ordering those, i've heard that they fall apart too easily and then (g) HighWiz says "yes, i can totally confirm that"...

then the "unread content" results page does not need to show me seven separate entries all from these people. It only needs to link me to (a) the original post from WarezJoe asking about inflatable dongs. i will see (b) through (g) when i go to that thread and scroll through it like a normal person. well, a normal person who is reading about giant inflatable dongs.

current forum feature appears to give the full seven entries on that first "unread content" results page.

[TheCotMan]

Here is a comment. Example.

[TheCotMan]

Here is another comment example.

[TheCotMan]

i am not seeing "since last visit" but the format of the "recent activity" feature is still pretty poor, for me.

i would love to log in, easily click one link or menu command, and see the following...

1. activity since my last visit consisting of threads with unread posts
2. see them listed in a SHORT form (not showing the content of the posts, just the names of the threads)
3. the results list should show me what sub-forum they are in (i'm not going to read a DCGroup sub-forum for Indonesia, even if there are unread posts there)
4. there should be an easy click link or button to jump directly to where the unread stuff (since my last visit) is starting

... if i have that, i'd be on the forums a LOT more, i think.

many of us would.

Yep. You found "Unread Content" and I will comment on your items about that, below.

comments on "Since Last Visit" : I did have "Since Last Visit" for a while, but it was buggy... You login at 11:00am, read a few posts, but then by 11:05 you stop looking at pages. You have a cookie on your client machine, and you do not logout, you just browse away from the forums. The forum software has a unique session ID generated for use with your cookie, but it will expire this server-side session ID after a certain amount of inactivity. Let's say this is 15 minutes. You browsed away from the forums at 11:05. Someone posts something at 11:08 and then at 11:12, and then at 11:18, and finally, at 11:20 (assuming 15 minutes for server-side session timeout) your session is closed on the server side. Now, your last visit is marked as 11:20, when your session ended from the server side, not at 11:05 when you browser elsewhere.

If you use the logout button? The window is made smaller, but not eliminated.

If you re-visit the forums, and your cookie is still valid, then the server will generate a new session ID with a new timeout for whn to consider you visit ending. Users don't have visibility into server session ID from a normal browsing session; there is nothing on the web pages to show this happening.

Next, if you are logged in, and happen across a long thread that causes you to take more than 15 minutes to read (assuming server session is 15 minutes before timeout) then once you finish reading that and ask again "show me content since my last visit" then it is all missing since your last visit is now when your last session ended.

It is terribly buggy, and a poor search tool with nothing but risk for lost data and confusion in users experience.

EDIT: ah, i see the "unread content" feature now. results list is way, way too big on the screen, however. no need for the content of posts to be in the results list.

EDIT AGAIN: the "unread content" results page appears to show a separate entry for every new post in a given thread. also needless. if there's a thread somewhere about "inflatable dongs for the pool party" and since my last visit (a) WarezJoe comments and then (b) 303Panda comments and then (c) WarezJoe replies and then (d) a mod says "keep it on topic, people" and then (e) DT comments "i think we can order those" and then (f) Nikita comments "we are not ordering those, i've heard that they fall apart too easily and then (g) HighWiz says "yes, i can totally confirm that"...

then the "unread content" results page does not need to show me seven separate entries all from these people. It only needs to link me to (a) the original post from WarezJoe asking about inflatable dongs. i will see (b) through (g) when i go to that thread and scroll through it like a normal person. well, a normal person who is reading about giant inflatable dongs.

current forum feature appears to give the full seven entries on that first "unread content" results page.

Right, so you do not want to brief summary in the results, you want the shorter description. That is possible. I'll let users chime in on that feature vs the present one, run them in parallel for user testing. That is a simple change. I'll move on to comparing tests for users after the rest of the search options are decided.

As for the rest of your comments...

I write it here again... for the third time?

Read vs. Unread granularity works at the "thread" level. If you look at the last post in a thread with 10 new posts or comments, viewing the thread marks ALL posts/comments as read.

More details, not previously included:

We have 3 choices on what to return when considering scope of "thread only" or "posts only" or "comments, posts" :
* If you choose thread, the link generated for that thread is to the thread, not to the first bit of content in the thread you have not read
* If you choose "posts only" then you will not see ANY of the comments to a post. (Comments are a new concept in the software. A comment is like a reply, but is not classified as a post, and it is attached to a specific post. I have included 2 comment examples to your post above, and you will note their timestamp is older than the timestamp for this post. Anyone can comment on any post anywhere in a thread. Choosing "thread only" or "post only" won't show you comments as updates.
* If you choose "posts or comments" then any updated post in a thread or comment as a reply to post will be listed, and have a link provided directly to the content, but visiting any post or comment in a thread will mark ALL comments or posts in that thread as read.

This is the present state of things. Which would you prefer?

In the present incarnation, you can choose "Unread Posts" link and all updated content is shown: posts or comments. They are sorted from OLDEST to NEWEST, so if you mechanically start with the top link, you are brought into a thread where that content was added as unread content. Any other unread content in that thread should be below that point, so scrolling-down should allow you to get caught up. After you FINISH that thread, again, click on "Unread Content" and ALL comments and posts previously listed as unread in that thread are no longer listed in your new search. Finally, when you are finished, if none of the content is of interest in the "Unread Content" save yourself time, and click the "Mark Everything as Read" will mark everything as read, leading to no more results in "Unread Content" to save you time next time you check.

Yes, this requires a bit of a procedure on the user's side, but it is the closest thing I have found to get people links to a specific post in a thread that they have not yet read, so they can continue from there, downward in the thread to see anything else they missed.

This is complicated with the "comment" thing, since comments can appear anywhere in a thread, even early-on, where really old posts may exist, causing you to need to scroll some pages ahead to get to the next unread content, unless you kept the previous search of unread content opened in another tab. Though convenient, disabling comments may be required in order to have the "Unread Content" work as expected.