So I have no idea what the technology is that does this, and I'm betting that RM can't afford it, but what does it look like to have web pages updated on their own with activity.

For example, ESPN's GameCast updates automatically with changes in scoring etc. for games. Sometimes you don't even have to have the page officially refreshed, but it changes the page in real time. Facebook also does this with activity on your news feed etc.

Like I said, I have no idea what the technology is for that, if RM could afford it, or if it's even feasible for a phpBB.

Just throwing it out there as an idea.

The main reason I thought of it was just for while one sits on the forum page such as GD, Sports etc. and waits for topics to be updated, rather than having to refesh the page. Not necessarily within threads themselves, but I guess it could be used there too.

Thoughts?

I think that would be annoying.

Feb-Jun. 2010: $23.97 / $686.62

I can see where you're coming from if you have threads moving on you in terms of top of the page because they're most recently updated, but I'm sure there would be a way to at least signal that there has been a post in a thread, and that it wouldn't move from it's "box" on the page to the top of the page until an official refesh of the web page. This way, you don't have threads jumping all over the place on your browser. That would be annoying. But an alert, basically what we get with the highlighted sticky on the left of the thread title, that updates automatically without an official page refesh seems like a pretty good idea.

Have you tried the "Subscribe forum" links? One is directly above the black bar with Topics/Author/etc. within each forum. It's not the instant, Twitter-stream sort of solution you're talking about (which I don't even think is possible-- nor desirable in a discussion forum, imo-- with phpBB), but I imagine it's better than refreshing the page over and over waiting for activity.

Personally, I'm a big RSS/Atom feed fan. I follow anywhere between 150-200 feeds in Google Reader. I'd love to be able to subscribe to per-forum feeds on RM (in my case, I'd subscribe to Other Bands and Tech. Support). I'd probably drop email notifications for threads I've posted in if we had feeds. I know whole-board, forum, and topic feeds are a feature of phpBB, but I do not know what the bandwidth hit would be if RM was to enable them.

I hardly ever use it because it only sends me an e-mail notification, which wastes about 5 seconds since i have to delete the notification from my phone, and I could just as easily refesh the page. I did use it actually for this thread after I posted it, because I hardly ever check Tech Support. But topic subscription seems like it's helpful for long-term notifications...like when someone posts in a thread days and days or even weeks or more after the latest post. The solution I'm looking for is one that improves short term notification of activity within a thread/forum. Topic subscription doesn't do that too well in the way it is set up currently.

Just FYI, immediately after suggesting "Subscribe forum" to you, I decided to try it out myself. I hadn't tried it before because I didn't want to get overwhelmed with emails. Turns out it's pretty much useless in general. It's been over a week now since I subscribed to Tech Support and GD and I've only received a handful of email notifications for both.