When I first come here, I go to the
User CP to see what threads I'm subscribed to have new posts.
After reading/replying to those, I have a bookmarked customized search to find posts in the
past 24 hours, excluding forums I'm not interested in. I generally look for questions that haven't been answered yet, or need additional information. Once I've gone through those, I use
Forum Spy to track the forums I'm interested in.
I have
SafariStand set up with right-click searches of
MRoogle,
Apple Support,
Google,
Wikipedia, etc. so I can quickly find threads and sites to quote in answering questions. When I find such links, I frequently "Copy Link HTML Tag" and paste
here to convert to BBcode, for pasting in the forum. I'd like to find a more automated way to do that without going to another site, like a right-click special paste that would convert it automatically.
I also have a stack of text files on my Dock containing answers to frequently-asked questions that I can copy and paste to save retyping. (my CTS is bad enough!)
Recently, I've started checking profiles of newbies asking questions, to see how many posts they have. Approximately a third of all members have zero posts, a third have only one post, and a third have more than one post. That tells me that a first-time poster has about a 66% chance of never responding if I answer or ask for additional information, so I use that as part of my decision as to whether or not to respond.
It would be helpful if post count was visible on each post, under the poster's name, as it is on some other forums. While it's not always valid, it does give some idea of how committed someone is to the forum and how knowledgeable they may be. Generally speaking, someone who has been here for a couple years and has 1,000 posts is more likely to have learned accurate answers to common questions than someone who joined yesterday and has 2 posts.
