gotmilk: Linda Linda Linda still thinks it's a bug.
It's also the way it works, sure. But the way it works is based on a bug. The fact that so many of you in this thread, anyway, (almost all of whom are grandfathered premium members who don't have to deal with it yourselves) defend it, however, may influence them not to fix it. Having a button to mark the last actually read, in itself, is just a workaround, and not a fix for the bug.
Bob chose to leave the "inconvenience" as he himself called it, for the free members, to make their lives 'inconvenient" here, thereby providing a little pressure on them to leave or to pay the (very high) fees for joining. It's not enough of an inconvenience for people to leave, but reporting it should be expected.
As for the issue you raise about increasing posts for some free members, Matt can always comp an account to members whom he thinks are valuable. It's to iHub's benefit to have people post more, if they are posts of substance, since it generates interest and discussion, even negative discussion. For example, my pointing out the bug (and following it up with the apparently incorrect statement that Bob also programmed some of SI) evidently will generate infinite discussion in this thread. Increased quantities of posts are important to iHub's growth. Even the posts in this thread, which are primarily not of substance, help keep the service going.
If Matt wants to increase the number of messages for all free members, to double the number they are now, that would make sense. As the site becomes more active, there will be more threads in which most people will want to participate, and the 18 limit will become more constraining for all free members. I believe that limit also constrains the service from growing, so it would be to the advantage of iHub to increase the number of messages allowed because the site is growing now and there's more of interest.
For my own part, I have been setting increasingly higher standards for my posts. I combine issues in one post and often decide not to post about a matter that's not so important. That's a good thing. But I also haven't explored all the stock threads that interest me, in part because I don't want to be tempted to reach my post limit, so that's not good. For that reason I'd go along with increasing the number of messages allowed. The service is growing and that will help it grow.
Linda
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