Forum stalking isn't good, each refresh sends 6-8 requests to the MySQL database, and if you keep it up it slows yours and everyone's forums, as well if enough people do it, it can cause your hosting service to cut you off.

doesnt' matter if you refresh or go to another page, it still sends 6-8 requests (the PHP script has to ask for various things from the database, like posts, post dates, who posted, whose online, do i have new messages?)