How do you decide when to take a break from an enjoyable thread.

I back off when I've nothing to say or when I get tired of repetition.

That's it, edgar. I have a bunch of ongoing threads in the 'My Posts' folder that I'm not following at all any more. If I have nothing more to say and all the recent posters are either on my 'ignore' list or in competition to get onto it, I can find no reason to keep on reading posts on that thread. I'll make an exception from time to time if I see that the most recent post is from someone I respect. I'll probably click on it and read just that one post. But my ongoing interest in that thread has waned to non-existence.

If the last person posting is someone i ignore, i just don't go there. If that situation continues, the thread is obviously moribuend. If someone else posts whom i dod not ignore, then i'll go read--there's still hope.

By the way, the corollary to this is that there are threads which don't particularly interest me, but if i see that the last person posting is someone whose posts i like to read, i'll go check it out.

I leave a thread when all of the oxygen is being sucked out by people who insist on posting about other members instead of the topic or a group of last-worders are all competing ad nauseum for the last word.

I back off straight away, so there's absolutely no temptation to fire off some wisecrack that I'd regret later.
It would be good to have a cumulative ignore button, so that if enough people enter a thread who all ignore the same idiot, then said idiot wouldn't be able to post on that thread.

That's close to what we've got. They're still allowed to post, but unless someone has changed the default in their own profile, they only show as "below viewing threshold", or something like that.

If they are on ignore you won't see them unless somebody lifts a quote to respond. I'm happy not to know who posted by just seeing a long line of (user ignored) comments.

That too, and as time goes by, I find myself less and less tempted to look in on them.

GREAT BIG EXCEPTION: If someone's first page of posts is nothing but puzzles and games, I ignore them. I did that with Vonny and finally realized she was showing up in the real world.

Sorry, Vonny.

As Roger said, you can change that default in your preferences. I don't want anyone else's ignore to affect what I see.

On the original question, I never look at My Posts. Or I did once or twice some years ago. Aaack, I have many many posts that might trigger a thread to show up there. Instead, I just read New Posts.

There's evidently nothing that y'all love doing more than talking about those who you have on 'ignore'.

Have all the usual suspects made an appearance?

Do you do the same when the US propaganda flies thick and heavy, Ed?

Troll skip

That seems a bit anal Roger. If you don't do the puzzle/game threads you won't encounter them anyway. Why would you go onto these threads just to see who's posting on them so you can put them on ignore?

Ignoring certain topics and putting a member on 'ignore' are two different things. You can tell who the last poster is if you click on 'new posts', 'my Posts' or 'unanswered'. I don't think he is searching for folks to ignore, just passing on certain topics.