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I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

reedybear.bearblog.dev

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Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#61

Post by beretguy »

rplnt wrote: post #35
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #13

> Please advocate for more RSS support - especially with orgs you want to stay up-to-date with. Also advocate for support with browser manufacturers. It used to be good, then one of them dropped it and the others blindly followed. People clearly want the RSS button, why on earth not provide it?

Most people also decided it's a good idea to use browser from an advertising company. RSS is not good for business and it won't be provided.

> Most people also decide

Most people didn't decide. Most people were tricked into using chrome. Most people are not computer literate.

Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#62

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #40

how much of a PITA is it to add RSS to your own site?

It's an open text format. There are some complexities if you dive down the rabbit hole, but at the most basic level, it's pretty simple. I even do it by hand on one site that I rarely update.

Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#63

Post by 6510 »

fire_lake wrote: post #52

Question about the RSS spec: When pulling RSS, how do you know how often to poll? How do you know which items have been seen previously?

You could examine the time between feed items.

Personally I just start my reader then it aggregates and sorts my feeds by date into a single interface. This works well specially for much larger numbers.

Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#64

Post by gudzpoz »

Speaking of advocating RSS, I was trying out Nikola [0] for static site generation and found that they have a really nice-looking RSS end-point [1] that is viewable both from the browser and an RSS reader. Looking into the XML, it turns out it's called xml-stylesheet:
And I would argue that this is an excellent way to introduce new readers to RSS: instead of the browser popping up a download prompt, you can make your RSS feeds themselves a dedicated page for advocating RSS, in case an interested reader is browsing through the links on your site.

[0] https://getnikola.com/

[1] https://getnikola.com/rss.xml (Open it in your browser!)

[2] https://github.com/getnikola/nikola/blob/master/nikola/data/...

Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#65

Post by 0xEF »

soulofmischief wrote: post #56
donatj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's good to know. The number of times I have subscribed to someone on YouTube only to not see anything from them in years, and then find tens of their videos YouTube never offered is just insane. So many times I can't find anything to watch on YouTube and it just isn't showing me any of my subscriptions, it's ridiculous.

The first three menu items in the navbar of the authenticated YouTube homepage are 'Home', 'Shorts', and 'Subscriptions'. 'Subscriptions' shows exactly what's on the tin, a timeline of videos from your subscribed channels.

A lot of people might not realize this exists because of the way apps for smart tv's and game systems present the content and menus. I'm not sure if that's intentional or just misguided design, but the only reason I knew to see it out on my PS4's YouTube app is because I'd seen it on desktop.

Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#66

Post by guilamu »

donatj wrote: post #25
defrost wrote: post #8

As a general PSA, youtube channels have an RSS feed to alert you when a favourite creator releases a new video. The form is https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC2wdo5v... where channel_id is the channel hash code which is buried in the source for the "nicely named" channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CuttingEdgeEngineering and can be found without source diving via (say) FeedBro (RSS browser extension)…

That's good to know. The number of times I have subscribed to someone on YouTube only to not see anything from them in years, and then find tens of their videos YouTube never offered is just insane. So many times I can't find anything to watch on YouTube and it just isn't showing me any of my subscriptions, it's ridiculous.

Just use Freetube.

Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#67

Post by rplnt »

beretguy wrote: post #61
rplnt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people also decided it's a good idea to use browser from an advertising company. RSS is not good for business and it won't be provided.

> Most people also decide Most people didn't decide. Most people were tricked into using chrome. Most people are not computer literate.

That's fair. Though if I replaced "people" with "HN users" it would still hold true, and I would consider this group to be very computer literate.

Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#69

Post by elpocko »

defrost wrote: post #8

As a general PSA, youtube channels have an RSS feed to alert you when a favourite creator releases a new video. The form is https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC2wdo5v... where channel_id is the channel hash code which is buried in the source for the "nicely named" channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CuttingEdgeEngineering and can be found without source diving via (say) FeedBro (RSS browser extension)…

There is a "Copy channel ID" link on each channel's page, but it's well hidden. Click "...more" in the channel description, then click "Share channel" to open a popup menu that has the "Copy channel ID" link. It does what it says.

Re: I've been advocating for RSS support, and you should too

#70

Post by akvadrako »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #13

> Please advocate for more RSS support - especially with orgs you want to stay up-to-date with. Also advocate for support with browser manufacturers. It used to be good, then one of them dropped it and the others blindly followed. People clearly want the RSS button, why on earth not provide it?

I use RSS heavily and I don't want an RSS button - what would that even do? RSS is best when integrated with a stateful server-side reader.

Whatever comes with the browser will not be as good as an extension from a company focused on that feature. For example I use https://www.inoreader.com/

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