How do I get a heads-up on new comments to an FPP I didn't post? July 14, 2008 12:25 AM   Subscribe

Can I subscribe to a specific FPP in order to get email notification when a new comment appears?

I've read through the FAQ and done a search (though likely I've failed at doing one well). I'm trying to find out if there is an option to subscribe to the comment thread on a given FPP--that is, being notified whenever someone comments on it, rather than having to keep the FPP open in a tab and constantly refresh to see new posts.

It's possible this feature exists and I simply have no idea that I've seen the answer because I didn't understand it. Can someone point me in the right direction, if so?
posted by tzikeh to MetaFilter-Related at 12:25 AM (13 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

add /rss to the end of the URL. It's called RSS.
posted by dhammond at 12:33 AM on July 14, 2008


If you must have it via email, you could use a service like RSSFWD to forward the RSS feed for a thread to your email account. Just copy the URL of a post into the site's entry form, let them detect the feed, and then provide your email address. It'll let you customize how new items are sent to you, as well.

But it is kind of a pain to do over and over again for each new post. If you plan on subscribing to threads often, just get a feed reader like Google Reader or Bloglines.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:40 AM on July 14, 2008


dhammond - I know what RSS is, but how would that work for a thread here? Would the thread appear on my rss feed every time a new comment was posted?
posted by tzikeh at 1:07 AM on July 14, 2008


if you subscribe to the RSS feed of a thread (I do it all the time for my AskMe posts) then the new comments would show up as new items in your reader. It's pretty handy, in my experience.
posted by heeeraldo at 1:15 AM on July 14, 2008


A combination of RSS and getting the RSS feed emailed to you should do it. You'll get all the new comments appearing as new posts in your RSS reader [or email client] basically what everyone else said.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:20 AM on July 14, 2008


Okay, I'll give the rss reader an option. I've always wondered how participants in any given thread manage to respond to comments so quickly--it often looks like a conversation among two or three people. I thought they had to be sitting on the post and constantly refreshing.
posted by tzikeh at 7:38 AM on July 14, 2008


I've always wondered how participants in any given thread manage to respond to comments so quickly--it often looks like a conversation among two or three people.

You say that like it's a good thing...
posted by mkultra at 7:40 AM on July 14, 2008


A lot of people read the site via the "recent activity" link [at the top of every page] which is a page that will just show you the new comments in threads that you have commented in. If you just reload this page, its an all-in-one "what's new" page. Also people look at the site often using tabbed browsers so they reload a few comment pages at once and can see what's changed quickly.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:41 AM on July 14, 2008


How often do the RSS feeds update for specific threads? They've always seemed really slow to me.
posted by Who_Am_I at 10:44 AM on July 14, 2008


jessamyn: "A lot of people read the site via the "recent activity" link which is a page that will just show you the new comments in threads that you have commented in."

Also in Recent Activity, there is a "My Favorites" tab, so you can follow a thread by adding it to your favorites, rather than commenting in it.
posted by team lowkey at 11:11 AM on July 14, 2008


How often do the RSS feeds update...

The RSS feeds for threads are always up to date when you (or your news reader) views it. My guess is that your slowness is related to how often your news reader checks for new content.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:44 AM on July 14, 2008


Yeah, it really depends on what you're using; I've found Feed Demon to be amazingly on the ball in terms of checking for new content, but Google Reader is pretty slow at it.
posted by Phire at 8:20 PM on July 14, 2008


I've never timed it or anything but it's always seemed like the main feeds update about every 5-10 minutes, whereas specific threads only update every few hours, even when I manually refresh. I do use Google Reader, so maybe that's the problem.
posted by Who_Am_I at 9:57 AM on July 15, 2008


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