AskMeFi Tag Alert?

A rainbow-brite pony request: AskMeFi tag alerts, sent via MeFi mail or sidebarred?

I really like answering AskMeFi questions, but I tend to restrict myself to those for which I have personal experience, or are within my area of expertise. I'm finding that with the frequency of my visits to AskMeFi (about every three to five days), I have too many questions to look through. The existing sidebar in Ask is very good, but I'd like to be able to drill down to my particular fields quickly ("woodworking", "Mac", "web design", "films" etc.) I know such a system would lose some accuracy (as some askers wouldn't think to tag their questions in ways that match my expectations), would increase server load, and remove some of the serendipity of the AskMeFi experience... but it could also create greater engagement, too.

My apologies in advance if this is something that's already been considered, or if there's a method to achieve it at my end that hasn't occurred to me.

posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul to feature requests at 3:19 PM (11 comments total)

use an rss reader with the tag-specific feeds?
posted by juv3nal at 3:23 PM on February 10

If you use Google Reader or Bloglines or another web-based RSS readers, you can read a web page of only question on your tag or in a category you like. So if you were good at answering heavy metal questions, you could go to the page for the heavy metal tag

http://ask.metafilter.com/tags/heavymetal

and then look at the top where it says "subscribe" and add that web address to your favorite RSS reader. You can go to reader.google.com and click on "add subscription" and subscribe to that tag's feed. You can use bloglines.com if you don't want to be involved in Google's relentless quest for empire. The same is true for all the caegories. Go to a category page like home&garden

http://ask.metafilter.com/category/3

and you'll see the web address for the feed to that category. If you're using a newer browser you'll also see an icon in your browser's address bar that you can click and add it to whatever the browser thinks your reader is.

So, I think that's a method that works okay on your end for this. Let me know if something I said doesn't make sense.
posted by jessamyn at 3:26 PM on February 10

Yeah, I follow anything tagged with "tivo" by simply subscribing to the tivo tag feed in Google Reader. I also subscribe to "art" in MeFi proper -- it's always a great source for interesting links.
posted by mathowie at 3:34 PM on February 10

Wonderful, jess... thanks very much. I knew there was something I wasn't considering. Feel free to close this, if you like... tho I'd like to think that my denseness might help others. :-)
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 3:40 PM on February 10

Yeah seems like a good idea to leave it open. It's in the FAQ but you might need to know that what you were describing was "rss" to be able to find it effectively.
posted by jessamyn at 3:50 PM on February 10

You can use bloglines.com if you don't want to be involved in Google's relentless quest for empire.

...and would prefer instead to become part of the Ask Jeeves rebel alliance.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:38 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]

Good point. What's a decent web based RSS reader that is not owned by some borglike web creature?
posted by jessamyn at 4:55 PM on February 10

Mm, there's something charming about a separate RSS application though. The offline reading of cached material was definitely a huge plus. I loved Feed Demon and despite having switched to Google Reader on all the recommendations, may well go back. The only thing that bugged me was that it would load links within FeedDemon and it seemed to be an IE interface. Ew.

Although I suppose NewsGator qualifies as an up and coming borglike web creature. Hmm.
posted by Phire at 5:40 PM on February 10

If somebody wants ibiblio to host some sort of magical google-reader-esque app and would be willing to manage it, please submit a proposal at the help form. Before you do, have a look at the collection criteria. It's hard to get further from Borg than ibiblio.

Then again, I've been mostly enjoying my experience with google reader...

Disclosure: I'm an ibiblian.
posted by tarheelcoxn at 7:48 PM on February 10

AskMeFi Tag Alert? February 10, 2008 3:19 PM Subscribe

AskMeFi Tag Alert?
February 10, 2008 3:19 PM Subscribe