This board does identify recent posts, but not the same way.
Messages are listed on the index page in order of the most recent post in the topic. In other words, the topic with the newest message comes first (after the Announcements and Stickies).
If you are a registered user, the board remembers the time of your last visit. This lets it show you all messages posted since then. It does this in a number of ways.
On the main page, at the right side above the forum list, is a link "View recent posts".
Also, this icon
appears in front of each forum name. But if any messages have been added to that forum since your last visit, the icon will be 
instead.Then in the forum, topics with new posts are flagged with this icon:
. On these topic lines, clicking on the 
icon goes to the first new post in the topic.It doesn't keep track of whether you've looked at a topic or not. So on your next visit the only topics flagged will again be the ones changed since you last left the board.
(A visit ends when you close your browser, stay idle for a period of time (5 minutes, I think), or log out - though we recommend staying logged in except on borrowed computers.)
- Walt
The boat with the red sails in the icons is Cathy's Realization. And on popular topics with a lot of replies, look real close - the boat (or the mooring buoy) might be rocking from all the wind!