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I ditched the algorithm for RSS

joeyehand.com

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Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#251

Post by sjs382 »

Avamander wrote: post #230
parski wrote: post #215

I started doing this a couple of years ago. In fact, I found this post when going through my RSS after breakfast. My biggest problem so far is that the RSS data is often very lacking (body, images, etc) and that there are still lots of content I'd like to filter out by sentiment. Like if I follow a technology outlet I don't want to know that there's an absolute steal on Sonos Arc on Bestbuy because I'm generally not…

I use Feedbin (self-hosted) and it has no difficulty with displaying images.

I've used Feedbin since it started (paid user on a grandfathered plan) and had no idea it was open source and could be self-hosted.

I'm happy to keep paying for the hosted version but I love knowing I have the option to self-host if it goes belly-up. Thanks for pointing this out!

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#252

Post by remram »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #97
mrtz wrote: post #96

The thing that annoys me with RSS is the lack of paging. It's great to get updates, but most pages only have the last x articles in their feed. Which means a lot of older, still valuable content is not discoverable anymore.

Discoverable? The older content is still in the same place as always. The entire purpose of RSS is to alert you when new content is published. You discover the old content by reading it.

If you treat your RSS feeds as reading lists, it is useful to have the full list in there. Of course you can track your unread entries another way (browser bookmark, etc) but it's not as convenient.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#253

Post by mawise »

ttepasse wrote: post #129
mawise wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of interesting work in this space by the IndieWeb community. They've got a vision of (and lots of a spec for) a social reader[1] that uses RSS for lots of the things people got in the habit of with Web2 social media (comment, repost, etc) [1] https://indieweb.org/social_reader

(Although the IndieWeb community has this weird thing against "side files" and prefer having the content inside the HTML, marked up with Microformats2 special attributes. A social reader then polls the HTML and parses it additionally with the Microformats2 algorithm. I suspect this cultural preference is a result of the usage of static site builders of the early IndieWeb pioneers like Tantek.)

Yeah, I don't really grok the focus on MF2 given the wide adoption of RSS/Atom, but the social reader concept isn't one I've seen anyone else advocating for. It also suffers from the same spam problem of anything else that allows public submission of content. I've been exploring it more in the context of _private_ blogging were you already have a layer of access control.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#254

Post by nwellinghoff »

freetonik wrote: post #34
nwellinghoff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you “open original to view full content” and then use browser back to get to your page, the back history is removed and you can’t click back again to get to your main page. Makes it hard to navigate. Love the site.

Not sure I understand. The "open original.." is a plain link with target="_blank", and Minifeed is a pure classic HTML web app with zero JS shenanigans. There is nothing which can manipulate the history. Since the link opens in a new tab by default (because of target="_blank"), that new tab naturally does not have a "back" history. Is this what you mean?

On ios it does not do that. When I click on the original source link it replaces minifeeds page in the current tab. I can the ln click back and it does take me back to minifeed but then I cant click back again to get back “one more” to the minifeed index.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#255

Post by solaire_oa »

I've been using FreshRSS for about 3 years now, with pretty much the same sources of feeds as the author.

The main pro is that the signal to noise ratio is incalculably better than social media. It's trivial to obtain updates you're actually interested in when you control the filters.

The main con is that even though it has replaced social media, it's still not fulfilling, in the same way social media wasn't fulfilling. It's still a stream of often entertaining but mostly irrelevant information.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#256

Post by artisanspam »

whatevertrevor wrote: post #231
artisanspam wrote: post #119

I love RSS. I use RSS daily. I use link-aggregation websites like HN to find interesting authors and subscribe to any RSS feeds that they have. Highlights from my reader sync automatically into my Obsidian vault. It's great. But I know I, and everyone else posting in this thread, are in the minority. It's clear that most people prefer algorithmic drip in a walled garden. There's a reason everyone flocks to those plat…

> Highlights from my reader sync automatically into my Obsidian vault. It's great. Which RSS reader do you use?

Readwise Reader. Yes, as another commenter stated it costs money, but it has many other features that I find useful such as good text-to-speech, integrations with other apps like Obsidian, and a good export feature if I want to switch to another feed app.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#257

Post by DavideNL »

nfriedly wrote: post #76

I have my own little instance of FreshRSS and I love it. Both the software itself - any time I discover and report an issue, it gets taken seriously and fixed fairly quickly - and also my collection of feeds: * High quality blogs (Bartosz Ciechanowski, Bits about Money, etc.) * Local government announcements * OpenWRT updates (subscribed to the releases/announcements forum) * Price trackers for things I want to buy e…

Same here... FreshRSS is great.

Other than the web interface, on Apple devices i'd recommend checking out the NetNewsWire (free) and Reeder clients to use with it.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#259

Post by Gormo »

Beijinger wrote: post #152

My buddy will soon offer an RSS reader. I will post it here. Yes, you can create an RSS feed from a Youtube Channel. You can can create an RSS feed from Reddit. You can't to my best knowledge create an RSS feed anymore from Twitter Newsletter to RSS: https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ More stuff: Blogs & RSS https://rssfeedasap.com/ https://code.rosaelefanten.org/rssparser.lisp/dir?ci=tip This one you have to pay. I am…

> Yes, you can create an RSS feed from a Youtube Channel. You can can create an RSS feed from Reddit.

You don't have to create anything. YouTube and Reddit have never stopped publishing RSS feeds. I've personally been using RSS continuously for both sites without any issues for the past 15 years.

Both sites adhere to the standard link tag structure for declaring feed URLs in the headers of applicable pages. You can use a browser extension like 'Get RSS Feed URL' (https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/get-rss-feed-url/kf...) to easily expose the feeds associated with a page you're visiting without having to look for them in the page source.

I personally have all of my feed subscriptions -- blogs, podcasts, aggregators (including HN), YouTube channels, subreddits, etc. -- synchronized via TT-RSS on my VPS. I then use Liferea as my client (https://lzone.de/liferea), pulling from TT-RSS, for a high-quality, no-nonsense reading experience on the desktop.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#260

Post by mjmsmith »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #175
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…

I'd like to see an RSS item-level recommendation / discovery algorithm driven by recommendations made by a cohort of people who have similar likes to me. I wish there was a standards-based to publish a stream of my "likes" from my feed reader, and to "consume" the "likes" of others. When I add somebody's blog to my feed reader I'd expect it to pick up their "likes" (much like how people used to have a "blog roll" on…

Do any of the web-based readers offer discovery based on matching your RSS list to other users' lists? Mine (Feedbin) doesn't, but I'd like it as an opt-in option.
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