A few questions for the "hardcore" ATS members. How do you keep up with all of your subscribed thr

I am making this thread because I have been running into a problem keeping up with responding in a timely manner on the threads that I like. I know that this seems like a crazy topic that has no merit, but I truly want to improve the way I interact on ATS.

The main problem that I have is that I take the time to post on one thread, and in the time it takes to do so, I lose track of another thread that I was engaged in. I look at my subscribed threads but I still tend to lose track of a conversation. I have a few questions for the members that I see on alot of threads at a time. If you would please share some info with me to improve the speed in which I reply because I take interest in alot of topics?

What is the proper amount of time to wait on a reply from a poster?...... I tend to wait a few minutes to see if any one wants to reply. If not I move on. How long do you wait, or do you wait at all?

Is it considered rude to still talk of the same topic the following day on the thread?...... I see some posters complaining about quick replies. Not often, but I see it.. I personally see the thread as permanent and I do not mind having a conversation lasting days at a time. Do you?

How many threads do you keep up with? I think that one of my problems is that I have too many subscribed threads? It is hard for me to choose which ones to respond to.

As I spend more time(the girlfriend say too much time..lol..) on ATS I want to interact in a manner which serves my post better. I know that this might seem like a waste of time to most members but I think that everybody here should at least want to better their experience.

This is not for flags or stars or any other thing other than information from the posters that I interact with. I am up for a while do to the extreme weather and I do not see alot of traffic on ATS so I thought this was a good time to ask. I can multi-task so please do not call me slow,(I am sorry I had to throw that in there because I seen it coming) So please if you have a tendency for hateful comments just click on another thread and do not waste my time. If you feel that this was a waste of your time, then I apologize and may your ATS experience today be merry.



Oh, and one more thing, If nobody replies then I guess that the questions I asked are not a big issue. It is just that I have been wondering about a few things and I thought I would throw it out there for a discussion.

I have one question or suggestion for you. I only ask this because when I first joined, I was thinking there should be a feature such as this. Later on, I finally found it and realized there is this feature. When I first joined here, I was going to each subscribed thread to look and see if someone had replied to me or not. I did not easily find, at first, the location where you can just click it open, and shows you if anyone has replied directly to you or not. It shows the name of the person who replied, and the name of the thread that they replied in. You can click that, and it opens another tab directly to the comment that was made in response to you.

I hope that makes sense. Do you know what I am referring to?
In 'Tools' > messages?

reply to post by BrokenCircles


Thank you for the info.

I will look into it because I do have too many threads I like. I am not necessarily worried about people respondong to me directly, I like to read other posters information also. I might would like to respond to them.

I hope this is timely. I was lost in the sea of threads again. I remembered to look to see if anyone replied.lol

I did a quick search on ATS to see if this was covered.... by quick search I mean that I typed in one search, skimmed the results.... then the oven timer beeped.

Nice one for bringing it up (on a personal level) as I have been meaning to search this myself. As nothing has caught my eye I'm hoping that some long time ATS users will offer some information to you (and I, and most likely other new arrivals). There is probably threads on this subject though, here are 2 I quickly copied for you

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread551863/pg
www.abovetopsecret.com...'

Perhaps even u2u some members you see contribute regularly, form a friendship and learn from them.... thats what I plan to do at some point

^^^^ double post please remove mods

reply to post by moonpie86


Thank you for the ideas.

I usually do a search but lately the google search does not work all of the time. Half of the time I try to use it and it tells me there is an error or whatever. I wanted to get some real time answers if anyone felt like sharing info.

I thougth that I was the only one with this problem..lol

reply to post by liejunkie01


Yeah. I like to read others comments too, but after finding this particular feature, I just always open it first. Reply to those, if there are any. Then I will look at other comments or threads. I easily get 5 or 6 tabs opened up just for ATS.

Anyways, just to clarify to anyone, where what I am talking about is located.

Bar towards the top. Click 'Tools'. Then another bar will drop down. Click 'Messages'. Then it will open up - Inbox, Replies, Outbox, Saved - Click 'Replies'

If you haven't been there then it will most likely open up a very long list with all of them being white and as unreplied to by you. Once it gets caught up, comments that you have already responded to will come up as a dark color, but new comments will show the name as a bright white. It really does save time, in my opinion.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


I really appreciate you sharing this information with me(us). I really was unaware that there was this feature. I will check it out tomorrow because it takes me a while. You should have seen me watch the videos on how to upload pics and avatars...that took me a while, but now I know how to upload youtube vids(pats self on back)..

Thank you for taking the time to explain how to do this.

reply to post by liejunkie01


No problem. Glad it was helpful. I really had no idea if you already knew about it or not. Once you do it once, you will see that it's really easy to get to, and quite convenient.

Which is basically how most of this site is- youtube - pics. Seems difficult at first. Then after you figure it out, you realize it is actually very easy. There is just so many options and buttons, they can be hard to find at first.

Since you mentioned youtube, I am reminded of this too. I found this in one of the replies on a very old instructional type thread in the freshman forum. I copied it onto a little 'sticky-note', and still have to look at it at times. It may just be new Youtube videos compared to older ones, but some will have it like this at the end of the URL -'SR2sEPSl34&feature=related'. Others are just like this- 'VQu8A_Wjbbc'. So, for me at least, I sometimes just enter the 2nd choice I showed, and it will not work. So then, on my own, I add the -'&feature=related', it will work.

&feature=related

You must be reading a lot more stuff than I do!

I have only two places where I track threads. MyATS and Recent Replies.

Whenever I post in a thread, it appears on the right, in MyATS, so every time I visit, I can check that to see if there are new replies. I also have "New Topics" on the left side of the page set to default, so every time I visit ATS, all the new threads in my subscribed forums show up on a list there. So, I can see the new threads started since my last visit.

After I check them out, I visit Recent Replies to see if there's anything interesting in other threads in forums that aren't on my subscribed list.

Good luck! I remember how overwhelmed I was at first, but I came up with something that works for me. I'm sure you will, too.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
I have only two places where I track threads. MyATS and Recent Replies.

Similar here. Although I only use MYATS for keeping tabs on threads I've responded to.

Every now and then I do a deleting session for those threads that have calmed down or just get plain dumb.

Keep it simples.