I am getting confused with the notifications

[Trying_to_learn]

I really must be missing something.

When I am looking at posts I no longer understand what is being shown to me.

EG;
Picture 1 - though I have looked at the thread, I didn't post in it.
So why is there a notification on it?

Number 2 - ok, I get that.

Number 3 - again: Why the notification?

[afelix]

Number one: if you spend a bit of time in a thread reading it, Discourse sets the status for the thread to tracking (default status is only notifications for mentions).

Once you post, it will have you get specific notifications for mentions/direct responses to you.
Number two is exactly that. And three the same as one again. You can see (and/or change) the status for every topic at the bottom of a thread. The message next to the status also mentions why it is like that.

You can change the settings in your preferences:

[kuema]

I ended up disabling the "automatic tracking" feature because it got annoying. And the "updated topics" list keeps growing and growing.

My reading workflow is usually: browse the 'latest' list, open the threads I'm interested in in a new tab and read them later when I have the time.

If I really wanted to be notified I set it manually or use the bookmark feature. Really useful.

[TotallyInformation]

There is definitely something off with the automatic tracking because I've seen some random markers over the last few months. Hard to pin down though and I really don't have the time to do an analysis of it.