Not necessarily, although that could be true in an extreme case.
From time to time, while helping users, it was noticed that one user’s post-read count was increasing faster than another’s. The difference was often that the more active reader had no muted certain categories. Topics from those categories therefore appeared in their topic lists and were more likely to be read.
When the other user unmuted the category, more topics became visible in their normal browsing views, and their daily post-read count increased to roughly match the other user’s.
Yes. Posts in those categories can count when they are actually read. However, muting a category can indirectly slow a user’s progress because its topics are hidden from views such as Latest and are therefore easier to miss.
Years ago, the post-reading requirement on the OpenAI forum was based primarily on a percentage of the forum’s activity, without the lower cap that exists in many current configurations. On a very active forum, that could require reading 10,000 or more posts.
Some users noticed that other members’ post-read totals, as shown in the user directory, were increasing much faster even though they were reading every visible post they could find. After some investigation, muted categories were identified as the reason: a substantial number of available posts were not appearing in their usual topic lists.