The post was triggered by changes I have been making at my end plus the discussions re. the forum digests.
I have been re-factoring my web interactions around the Google Personalized Home Page. I switched from Bloglines to Google Reader as part of this and in addition to the automatically generated tags I have assigned a "Watch" tag to selected feeds. My GPHP reader gadget is set to display new posts for "Watch".
Thought it would be handy to pick up a feed for this forum in particular and add it to my Watch list.
My current implementation is a bookmark folder with links to all the forums I want to check regularly. I open all in tabs and then burn through the topics after I have finished my pass through my feeds. The individual forum tabs are closed off as I complete the pass.
My needs are obviously different from a moderators. I wanted to, but did not need to, stay current with the forums. I needed to improve (reduce) the amount of time that I "wasted" looking at forum posts. I also needed to keep any non-task oriented links away from my desktop. I have very little won't power, so the easiest way to resist temptation is not to be tempted.