I haven't read everything yet

[NecCat]

I haven't logged on for a while, and when I did I had the arrow on the left in several areas showing new posts. But when I clicked on the individual areas (clash of cultures for example) there was no indication of new posts to be read in that area (the little arrow on the left beside that thread).

Is there another area that will show me what posts I haven't read yet?

[HYHYBT]

This is why I've used a combination of RSS and email notifications to read the site for years. The software marks everything as read automatically at some point I think a few hours after you come back, whether you actually did read it or not. Probably this is to stop people who come by often enough they can easily see everything they want to in one go don't have to bother clicking "mark all as read," but it also (especially on a busier site, such as CS) discourages visiting at all unless you have time to check through everything you haven't read to see whether you want to or not.

I have a similar problem with Facebook's news feed: for no good reason, you're forced to start at the top every time. So if you see what's new by going until you recognize several things in a row (because they don't have the decency to leave stuff in order either) and you don't have time to get through all of it, the next time the part you did see looks like the end even though there may be a lot below that.

(And if some update's changed the way vBulletin behaves in a relevant way, I apologize.)