This script inserts a checkbox at the top of every topic that, when clicked, will automatically track that topic and alert you of new posts in live time from anywhere on EM. The alert displays the most recent post, along with the title of the topic that serves as a link.
People can use this how they would like. Personally, I would only use this in particular situations and therefore the bandwidth thing wouldn't really be an issue.
The response and the result are the same - just the HTML of the most recent comment page. But until Lucid decides to implement an API, loading the data this way is the only option.
i prefer to read the response than look at the result
the response is html, not json or any other small data format that exists for this purpose (especially since 99% of responses should be nix, rather than requesting all of the data every time when nothing changes).
also, it's absolutely horrifying to think that's an actual method in jquery
