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hotsh / rstat.us

Simple microblogging network based on the ostatus protocol.
http://rstat.us/
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RSS feeds for a given user would be nice... #658

Closed prehensile closed 12 years ago

prehensile commented 12 years ago

... and a quick win for IFTTT, since it's possible to set up a trigger on new RSS items.

carols10cents commented 12 years ago

We actually have an Atom feed for each user at, e.g. https://rstat.us/users/Carols10cents/feed and Firefox and Chrome seem to be treating the content there as valid RSS.

I guess we don't have the right link element to make it auto-discoverable though? Do browsers even still show a little RSS icon in their toolbars? I haven't used RSS in so long, hah.

I added my URL as an rss feed trigger and then made a new post and IFTTT picked it up!

So I guess this issue is to make it more obvious? Should we add an RSS icon that links to this feed on each user page?

prehensile commented 12 years ago

Oh yes, I didn't notice that at all. Chrome certainly didn't go out of its way to make it visible. Excellent!

Certainly a more visible link would make it more obvious, but it would be a shame to clutter up the interface with stuff which most users probably won't care about. A quick look around other services shows a tendency to shove the link down to the bottom of a page; maybe the bottom of the light grey panel on the user page? Or a little orange RSS icon next to "n Updates" in that panel?

wilkie commented 12 years ago

The feed url is discoverable in several standard ways. It would be a wonder if IFTTT cannot pull it out. What is it looking for? There is a link tag in the head for the feed which is the ostatus standard... is it looking for a specific rel?

carols10cents commented 12 years ago

I believe the issue here is more human discovery than machine discovery-- IFTTT has an RSS trigger, but if users don't know that an rstat.us RSS feed is available, they'll never try to put an rstat.us url into IFTTT.

Is that accurate, @prehensile?

prehensile commented 12 years ago

@carols10cents: yep, exactly.

wilkie commented 12 years ago

Well that's really hard. People shouldn't have to know what the protocols are behind the scenes. It's far too overwhelming. People who don't know what RSS is would be completely confused and not be able to do anything with ifttt anyway.

We removed it because it was useless. We can add it, but hide it so it's hardly visible. :) It can only be on the profile page of some person. Some text that says "Hey, this page is a feed. So, it also attaches an Atom feed. It's there in the tags. Things that expect an Atom feed can use this in its place." Do you remember the time when browsers told you?

It is indeed a convention that you can follow people using their profile urls. The fact people don't know this is an educational thing and IFTTT being too generic and not flexible. It's a hyperlink. The profile page and the Atom feed are interchangeable using the lost magic of http! :P

We need a PSA: "Look. People. If you see a feed on the screen, then use that url as a feed. It should just freaking work or we've done a disservice with regard to http. If you cannot use your twitter profile as a feed, then TWITTER HAS DONE SOMETHING WRONG BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. If you cannot see a feed and use the same resource as a feed, then WHAT IS THE FREAKING POINT OF THE INTERNET AS A RESOURCE RETRIEVAL MEDIUM."

:D :D :D :D :D :heart:

wilkie commented 12 years ago

Haha. But no no. We should totally put a little RSS logo at the bottom of the "followers" UI in the profile page that says "This is an RSS feed"

It'll be silly, but maybe helpful for the time being. Until we EDUCATE THE WORLD.

carols10cents commented 12 years ago

:pill: :pill: :pill: <= some chill pills for you, @wilkie :P