Seeing comments since last visit
So we can sort the new page by new activity, but I do not see any way to reference when that "new" is. The only reference on the front page I can see to there being new content is in threads I've already accessed - where I get a notification there are new comments in the thread. If I didn't access the thread, but come back later, there is no notification that there has been activity within that thread. The only date listed is when the thread was created, and not when last activity was had. Is there more I'm potentially missing to see when a thread was last active from the front page?
In that same vein, is there a way to mark a thread as "read" besides going into it after new comments have been made?
Asking for what I'm looking for in a different way: Is there a way to filter out comments since last visit? Eg on old forums, there were "activity since your last visit" links - basically exactly like how the notification system works here, but a thread-based system for all comments instead of a comment-based system that are only responses to you (and in both to get the notification gone, either you interact with it or mark it is read). Is there anything like that?
The wiki only seems to have how to find new comments within a thread itself, and not new comments site wide: https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/wiki/instructions/navigating_tildes
Sort of? If you sort by activity and then from all time everything with new comments will be listed at the top. You still need to go through each individual post to look at the new comments though.
There are then a few extensions and browser scripts available that let you navigate new comments specifically.
AFAIK there is no way to view comments separately from the topic's comment section they're posted in. So there isn't an equivalent to that old 'activity since your last visit' forum feature, which showed you every new comment from all the threads you participated in. Nor is there a https://old.reddit.com/comments/ type page here which shows all the newest comments being made on the site.
But there is the 'Collapse old comments when I return to a topic' feature in settings, so when you visit a topic's comment section again all the comments that were made before your last visit to it will be minimized, and all the new ones highlighted. The only way to mark each comment section as having been "read" is to actually visit them though.
Edit: And in the sidebar for every topic's comment section there is also the 'Last comment posted' link which will take you to the newest comment in that particular topic.