When you look at the list of topics, you may have noticed that the first icon in the User column is the person who created the topic. The last one is usually the most recent to post. This feedback mechanism breaks when the creator is also the most recent, in which case the left icon is surrounded by a blue halo.
From what I can see, that is not a break, but an intended “feature”. The “blue halo” indicates the poster is represented by more than one feedback mechanism, which is only true when they are original poster AND most recent. If a “frequent poster” becomes the most recent, they are only tagged as “most recent” and the “frequent” is dropped until someone else becomes “most recent”. Thus, if I am not mistaken, only the OP can have the blue halo. This is accomplished by also being the “most recent”.
I say break because I recently had the OP respond to my post almost immediately, but I remained in the rightmost “recent” position and I did not read his reply until much later. That was when I discovered the halo.
Edit: to clarify
I find it intriguing what people use on boards like this. I only recently discovered that those icons had any meaning whatsoever: I largely ignored them as “eye candy”. I mean, I figured they meant something to the gamers out there who like flashy lights and lots of icons with meters and other ADD scratching features. That’s not me. I can barely focus on one thing at a time, so all other information on the screen largely gets relegated to background noise. And thus were those icons for the first 6 months of my using Talk. I largely still ignore them, as their usefulness to me is fringe, but it’s fascinating to know you actually use them more than (whatever it is I do to see when someone has responded to me–I think I use the little “message info conversation bubble thingies” in the top right, to the left of your avatar where it pops up counts of message responses…). As my mother in law says, life would be very boring if we all worked the same way…
DMS: Where ADD meets OCD
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