i had no idea1 min read

i just had a conversation with SIS – no not the big-brother-computer, but almost – that left me completely shocked.

in my RSS reader i had noticed how some RSS feeds print images and links, while others don’t. i never really gave this much thought. naive as i was i had always assumed that this had to do with some RSS issue or other, with different standards in blog software, with server limitations or something.
so far i had just grumpily visited the blogs to get my links or see my images … while swearing under my breath.

but little did i know.. because since my conversation with SIS, i know better… and this came as a complete shock, because, i swear, i had no idea about this.

so, it seems that [at least wordpress] bloggers have the possibility to consciously cripple their RSS feeds so images and links will get blocked. in this way they can ensure that people will visit their website via a browser in order to get all the info…

well, to me that’s just sick. and really sad actually. it will make me delete quite a few RSS feeds from my reader…

i mean, who has the time to visit hundreds of blogs a day? thats what’s so great about RSS readers, they save time and let me sift through information really fast and easy. and some people conciously make this impossible, because they esteem their designs to be oh so pretty and therefore visit-worthy?

i don’t think so.

edit: i guess the only acceptable reason for such a thing to me would be bandwidth considerations, because it does save bandwidth to limit RSS. but any and all other reasons are counter-bloggy to me.

9 Replies to “i had no idea1 min read

  1. in wp 1.5 options/reading/syndication feeds you can either say “full text” or “summary”. however “summary” does not only sum things up, it also blocks all links and images. i had never realised that. but please don’t do it, matthias. you’ll piss people off…

  2. Ah, that’s the old unsubscribing partial feeds vs. full-text feeds are dead debate.

    There is nothing wrong with summary; it does not “block” anything, it’s a perfectly legitimate and highly useful RSS element that does not contain anything but plain text. If every blog offered summary as well as full feeds, that would speed up my feed-reading quite a bit; I could subscribe to the summary feeds of blogs that I just follow as a matter of course, and sub to the full-text feeds of blogs I’m really interested in.

  3. what do you mean it does not “block” anything? of course it does. it blocks links and images and forces me to visit a website if i want to see those. in that way it does not speed up my rss reading, but slows it down immensly. if images and links are not blocked i can look at those, visit those, directly from my rss reader, without the “detour” to the website.
    now my question is not as much, whether this is legitimate per se or not. i would say, the reasons why someone uses it are what determines that for me. if SIS tells me outright that he uses it to force people to visit his website in a browser, because he thinks his design is oh so pretty, i find that pathetic to the maxxx, a spam-like method. if someone else does it to save bandwidth, because of a hosting deal, its another matter alltogether and fully legitimate.

  4. oh come on dude … no sense of humor? Our conversation wasnt that deep, so i left u with the joke about the oh so pretty design.

    To say summaryfeeds is like a spam method or means to force someone to visit my site is just wrong, imho. It`s just another usage of RSS … in my case use the feed to check if my site is updated, and not to read it all in your feedreader. But like Matthias said, it`s an old debatte.

    I`m sorry to disappoint you, an all `cause of a summary feed. But nonetheless i think we`re equal, i`m disappointed too … but, uhm … does the world need to know why? lets keep it on IM.

  5. fact is, it does force me to visit your website, if i want to check out the links you mention, so it is a form of control and it should be left up to me, the visitor, if i want to browservisit your website or read it in RSS.

    and you can turn it around as much as you want now, but you did say that you wanted to force people to visit your site. so you were very honest back there. but also quite naive i guess.

    and who the fuck cares if this is an old discussion or not. what is that supposed to mean? i only just noticed this co-relation, and was shocked about it now, so i speak about it now. so what are you trying to imply? same question to matthias: just about every comment here starts with “this is an old discussion…”. so what? powertrippin anyone?

  6. Nah, i think it`s my decision. And my decision was to have a website/log and not a RSSsite/log. Some guys even play with Commentforms in Feeds. weeee!

    I`ve never forced someone to read my feed. My feed gives you the option to check if there is something new on the site, nothing more. sorry.

    The old discussion thing was just like “most things are already said, i thought about that, right now i prefer summaryfeeds”

  7. i really don’t get your logic here. if it is your decision to run a website/log, why offer a RSS-feed to begin with? but what you don’t seem to get is that some people simply do not have the time to visit all the websites they would like to visit, so they heavily rely on RSS.
    i for one have now deleted all the RSS feeds that only offer summaries. so you just lost one occasional reader. is that what you want?

    in a way this discussion reminds me of the target=”_blank” discussion. if your website has good enough content people will visit it/come back to it anyway. no reason to force them to come/stay with cheap tricks like RSS summary and target=”_blank” links.

    and there is one more aspect: design. i tend to get bored of most webdesigns very quickly. and yours as well, btw. your design takes forever to load, what with all the javascripts, and its just too rich as a design for me. too much rust. i assume the same probably goes for many people with my design. that is why i leave people the alternative to visit my site as a RSS site only and still get the full deal.

  8. I offer the feed to users who want to check if the site is updated befor they visit. If you dont like that, and you stop reading, that`s ok with me.

    about the design, my site is not ment to be nice, nor is it ment to be very usable, fast-loading, etc … Its a experiment. And it is ment to just be too much of everything. You could disable CSS or redefine your own UserCSS. Or just stop reading it, it`s not really worth it.

    But it is good to know that you dont like it, it`s the first time you mention that. I`ll probably prefer to offer different themes then a Full RSS Feed, but thats just me.

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