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I ditched the algorithm for RSS

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Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#131

Post by numinix »

Dalewyn wrote: post #111
netghost wrote: post #87

The one thing that kills me is the number of "modern" blogs/sites that don't offer rss or atom is really frustrating. If I really like your site, please let me be an engaged reader and let me know when you have something valuable to say again! I've even resorted to adding features in my personal feedreader to seek out common feed locations or APIs that common blogging tools leave on mostly unnoticed.

Back like 15 to 20 years ago when I ran or helped manage some hobbyist websites, I added RSS functionality if only because it was "popular" back then. I can confidently tell you not a single bloody soul used it, at the height of adoption no less. If I run a website again I definitely won't bother, it's additional maintenance for a feature nobody uses. The cost-to-benefit ratio makes no sense because the benefit is ze…

In an effort to bypass Google News and broaden my media bubble - I tried to find RSS feeds from our national newspapers. Most had RSS at some point, but almost none still had it running.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#133

Post by nfriedly »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #114
nfriedly wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, my local government of Troy, Ohio (~25k population) offers RSS feeds with useful info about things like holiday closures, road construction, christmass tree pickup, etc. https://www.troyohio.gov/RSSFeed.aspx?ModID=1&CID=All-newsfl... There's also a calendar feed with city council meetings and such.

(Hello Troy (and Overfield) neighbor... >smile CivicPlus, the hosting company for Troy's site, does a fairly decent job. (They're rather pricey, in my opinion, though.) Miami County government uses them to host some of the various County websites. We expose some RSS feeds, send email notifications, etc. The biggest problem with the platform is getting elected officials and departments to see the value in using the pl…

Hey, fancy meeting you here! Send me an email sometime - nathan@[username].com

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#134

Post by digb »

orblivion wrote: post #4

I remember the period where I switched from the Something Awful forums to Reddit. Back in the day, you had to dig through a bunch of stuff that was bad to get to the "comedy gold". But even the bad stuff was sometimes comically bad. On Reddit, all the "gold" was always at the top, so there's always something "good", but it was generally lackluster and not quite it. Still it made me lazy and I switched (not that I rea…

It's because you are not an Average Human and so averaging everyone's humor doesn't really work for you. I think this is precisely why Instagram and tiktok are actually more addictive, they give you these personalized algos that are powered by your personal engagement stats, vs Reddit which just sort of sorts by other people's opinions

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#136

Post by ttepasse »

kevincox wrote: post #16
throw0101c wrote: post #3

For those implementing feeds, "RSS" seems to get a lot of mentions, but how much of it is RSS-as-such and how much is "RSS" as a generic term for "feed", with Atom also perhaps being implemented: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(web_standard)

> but how much of it is RSS-as-such Almost all of it. RSS is just a much more specific term than "feed" as many people talk about their Twitter or Facebook "feed". I have yet to see a reader that couldn't handle both RSS and Atom and you will see a mix of formats being produced. I wrote a bit more detail about this in the past: https://kevincox.ca/2022/05/06/rss-feed-best-practices/#form...

One exceptions are sadly podcast feeds and clients. Although technically the additional podcast elements or just a basic "non-funky" podcast feed shouldn’t be a hard problem, the podcast ecosystem mostly ignored Atom and produced and parsed only RSS 2. Even Apple‘s iTunes/Podcasts.app which launched in 2005 with support for both, gave up official support for Atom some years ago.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#137

Post by muppetman »

cglong wrote: post #118

I've been trying to get back into RSS recently. The problem I keep having is the dramatic weight difference between a news site and a personal blog; I'm occasionally interested in what the news site posts, but its volume is so overbearing that it's all I see in my feed. I just walk away with FOMO every time. I'm currently thinking about trying Feedly AI as an algorithm that could surface good content for me.

I use TinyTinyRSS - it has very powerful filters that support regex. So I spend the time to write Regex filters that run over all the news sites, so as to only surface stuff I'm really interested in on the "fresh articles" page. I can still go in and look at every article etc.

You can also apply weights etc, so for the small blogs etc I follow, I give their new articles a high score they so float to the top of the reader.

It works really well and I don't feel like I'm drowning anymore - I have a massive amount of content still get imported, but only the stuff I want to see is what I'm presented with.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#138

Post by ttepasse »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #106
bbkane wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My SSG (Zola) offers an RSS generation option, so I turned it on. Several months later I realized it was broken for some reason and I hadn't noticed. Nobody emailed me or anything (I'm not a popular blogger), so I just turned the RSS generation off

No blog is worth the hassle and honestly there is always a feed broken somewhere showing up in our reader we just wait for them to fix it. If they don't fix it then at some point it will just get deleted. That is just the reality of maintaining your own feed websites remove feeds sometimes and all you can do is go back see if its changed address and if not remove it.

I’m carrying my feed subscription list from reader to reader since 2002 – and every few years I’m thinking of thinning the list of long defunct blogs or at least look where they are now. Then I do something different instead.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#140

Post by gleenn »

ndriscoll wrote: post #123
bluGill wrote: post #100

A good algorithm is a good thing. However what a good algorithm is for me is often different from what it is for those who maintain them. Outrage gets attention and sometimes it is needed, but there is a level of too much, and also a lot of outrage unfairly represents the issues and so it makes me mad even though if I understood the details I wouldn't be mad just concerned. I want an algorithm that surfaces things of…

> you have seen it all, go outside Or "you've seen it all. Bored? Click here to let your friends know you're looking for something to do/see who else is bored". Or "Bored? X needs volunteers!" Or some other positive suggestion to try to prevent a "eh guess I'll doomscroll something else" reaction.

That would be such a killer feature. And it could find other friends in the area and that are also free. Not like Meta doesn't have some kind of model for all that data already probably.
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