[Steely Tom]

It’s been there a long time, maybe since 2000 or 2001.

[AlaskaErik]

I see you’ve only been here a little over 12 years.

[digger48]

nOOb detector

[BenLurkin]

Used to be the number of views on a thread would display as well as the number of replies.

Was helpful in getting a read on how interested people were on the topic and whether related articles were worth posting.

[BlessedBeGod]

You must not use your mouse much.

[animal172]

Wonder why mine doesn’t work? I’m a pretty decent hoverer. :)

[usconservative]

I just noticed that if you hover over a posters ID, it shows you how long they've been here.

Hovering = Stalking. Best be careful there ....

[Steely Tom]

In the early days, we had quite a few trolls. At first, FR was small enough that everyone trusted each other without question; some really devious trolls were able to exploit this and as a result caused a lot of strife and confusion; that was when FR started to really grow rapidly, in 1999 and 2000.

There was a lot of discussion back then about how to detect them, and probably the most visible outcome of that discussion was Jim's thoughtful addition of the "member since" float-over feature.

For a while there was also a "total views" feature for each story, but I think that took too much server bandwidth to keep current, so it was dropped.

[a fool in paradise]

Yes. Welcome to FR

Are you plugged in?

[BraveMan]

Makes me wish I hadn’t lurked for two years before signing up. I’ve often thought of bribing JR to give me that cool AF 1998 born-on date.

[Paladin2]

Google and the NSA hoover it all up.

[bravo whiskey]

Must be too early and no coffee yet. Until I read replies I thought he was talking about top 10 most wanted posters. Are they even at the post office anymore? I never go because it is federali property.

[Delta 21]

[airborne]

Click on their name and you can see their entire posting history.

And if you click on yours you can see your own.

You can also add a personal biography.

[fruser1]

It took me awhile to notice that feature too. Probably years.

Maybe it’s because I’m from the DOS days, so typically don’t hover as a habit, especially since FR is generally text. I’ve known about the hover feature in other applications for many years.

Also, unlike nowadays in email where you’d click on a name to reply, the FR reply is to the left of the line after the poster’s name. So if I wanted to reply, my mouse never had much chance to linger over the name.

Going through the article list, I did have occasion to notice that the OP’s name would immediately underline, which was a clue to stop the mouse. You then see the link to their page. This underline bit does not occur where you have article comments, so was a contributor to my not noticing, as the hover text has a delay before appearing.

Plus, the way I generally act with the FR UI is to open a post in a new tab. Thus, my mouse goes to the tab to select it. Reading, I either go to the scroll bar, or simply use the wheel, whereby my cursor is going down the center of the page, never traversing names.

Nevertheless, I did eventually discover the hover through some, possibly random, sequence of events that I cannot fathom.

People used to claim that if you get one of those quick chills and shudder, for no apparent reason, it means someone walked over your grave.

This makes me wonder what effect hovering over a user name has on the individual. Maybe this is why I occasionally feel the need to scratch my ass.

I hope you enjoyed my beating this horse to death.

[gunnyg]

Hover...............?

[OneVike]

It took you 12 years to figure that out?

That is more interesting, than what you just noticed.

[IncPen]

Welcome to FR.

; )

[Rio]

[philman_36]

There was a time you could see how many views a thread had.