Tags in RSS feeds July 18, 2008 3:55 PM Subscribe
I know we've discussed not adding tags to front page posts, but how about the RSS feed? For posts that are somewhat cryptic, it could help with context.
I can see tags as being useful but I can also see them as being noisy. Cryptic posts are likely to, as carsonb says, have cryptic tags. Oosts that are already well explicated, lots of extra tags would seem to me to be extraneous. How many cryptic posts do we have in MeFi generally? I'd think it's on the pretty low end. Then again I'm not against tags [and we do have them in FPPs, we just dont put them on the main page] in the RSS feed, I just don't see it as increasing utility much.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:05 PM on July 18, 2008
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:05 PM on July 18, 2008
How many cryptic posts do we have in MeFi generally?
It was my initial, gut reaction to assume 'posts that were somewhat cryptic' referred to purposefully mysterious posts, though now I see that it could also mean poorly worded/formatted posts. But again, if a poster doesn't care to get the subject across in a sentence or a para, what makes you think they're gonna be able to effectively boil it down to a few descriptive words? What do poor tags add to a poorly worded 'cryptic' post?
posted by carsonb at 4:19 PM on July 18, 2008
It was my initial, gut reaction to assume 'posts that were somewhat cryptic' referred to purposefully mysterious posts, though now I see that it could also mean poorly worded/formatted posts. But again, if a poster doesn't care to get the subject across in a sentence or a para, what makes you think they're gonna be able to effectively boil it down to a few descriptive words? What do poor tags add to a poorly worded 'cryptic' post?
posted by carsonb at 4:19 PM on July 18, 2008
Tags are included in the feed as RSS categories, but not every reader displays that information. I know Google Reader doesn't show categories anywhere, but Bloglines shows the first category under the post title. So that's hit and miss, but you might be able to find a reader that displays them.
I agree that putting the tags in the description after the post body would be noisy.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:35 PM on July 18, 2008
I agree that putting the tags in the description after the post body would be noisy.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:35 PM on July 18, 2008
They're already there, it's up to the RSS readers to do something with them*
* insert my years-old rant about the stupidity of the RSS 2.0 spec and how it was written before "tags" even existed but can't be updated because the people that wrote it refuse to do so. Also, their documentation is utter crap.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:41 PM on July 18, 2008 [1 favorite]
* insert my years-old rant about the stupidity of the RSS 2.0 spec and how it was written before "tags" even existed but can't be updated because the people that wrote it refuse to do so. Also, their documentation is utter crap.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:41 PM on July 18, 2008 [1 favorite]
Just looking at the front page right now, here are a few posts that having the tags would give more context to the posts IMO.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
posted by Drama Penguin at 4:42 PM on July 18, 2008
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
posted by Drama Penguin at 4:42 PM on July 18, 2008
They're already there, it's up to the RSS readers to do something with them*
Ok, looks like this is dead feature then - feel free to close.
posted by Drama Penguin at 4:46 PM on July 18, 2008
Ok, looks like this is dead feature then - feel free to close.
posted by Drama Penguin at 4:46 PM on July 18, 2008
Drama Penguin posted "For posts that are somewhat cryptic, it could help with context. "
Do mystery meaters put good tags on their posts? Or would that spoil the moment?
posted by Mitheral at 5:20 PM on July 18, 2008 [1 favorite]
Do mystery meaters put good tags on their posts? Or would that spoil the moment?
posted by Mitheral at 5:20 PM on July 18, 2008 [1 favorite]
I would like to see the mods add tags to some more posts. Think about this, Jess is a librarian, with an eye towards how to best classify things for easy search. If she were to selectively add tags to posts they would become much easier to find. I sure would not object to having her add tags to any of my posts, rather I would welcome the professional help. We are rife with librarians, and then look at the great work the hoi polloi achieved in the tagging project. It's cool to have a trained librarian tag it but any second set of eyes can help in adding tags that assist in later search. It would be a benefit, whether done by professionals, or just by regular volunteers. Tag away.
posted by caddis at 6:13 PM on July 18, 2008
posted by caddis at 6:13 PM on July 18, 2008
I definitely add tags to post when they're missing obvious ones [obit and obituary, most notably] and right now people can add tags to the post of their mutual contacts. Maybe we should promote that option more.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:19 PM on July 18, 2008
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:19 PM on July 18, 2008
Cryptic can also mean (for some of us) Americocentric. It would still be nice to have a default-off mouseover option to see tags without having to click through to a post from the front page.
posted by peacay at 7:58 PM on July 18, 2008
posted by peacay at 7:58 PM on July 18, 2008
my years-old rant
What does it take to write an updated specification? You're internet famous, Matt. Surely you, or people you know, have enough clout to come up with RSS 3.0.
posted by Dave Faris at 8:44 PM on July 18, 2008
What does it take to write an updated specification? You're internet famous, Matt. Surely you, or people you know, have enough clout to come up with RSS 3.0.
posted by Dave Faris at 8:44 PM on July 18, 2008
jessamyn writes: ...people can add tags to the post of their mutual contacts. Maybe we should promote that option more.
For sure, that's a really cool feature I didn't even know existed!
Maybe if I had some mutual contacts...
posted by anifinder at 9:13 PM on July 18, 2008
For sure, that's a really cool feature I didn't even know existed!
Maybe if I had some mutual contacts...
posted by anifinder at 9:13 PM on July 18, 2008
Can I use this this thread to request a different pony instead of opening another one?
I don't know if it hasn't been requested before, but I'd really like an rss-feed for personal favourite posts. Is this feasible, or would it blow the processor and bandwidth load out of proportion?
Because with that feature we could feed favourite posts to our blogs or soup.io.
posted by kolophon at 4:20 AM on July 19, 2008
I don't know if it hasn't been requested before, but I'd really like an rss-feed for personal favourite posts. Is this feasible, or would it blow the processor and bandwidth load out of proportion?
Because with that feature we could feed favourite posts to our blogs or soup.io.
posted by kolophon at 4:20 AM on July 19, 2008
The tags show up in NetNewsWire, and it's often pretty useful when deciding whether to click the links - eg., there's no way of knowing what this post from yesterday is about without reading the tags.
posted by jack_mo at 4:50 AM on July 19, 2008
posted by jack_mo at 4:50 AM on July 19, 2008
For posts that are somewhat cryptic, it could help with context.
Solution: Less cryptic posts.
posted by Artw at 7:39 AM on July 19, 2008
Solution: Less cryptic posts.
posted by Artw at 7:39 AM on July 19, 2008
Can I use this this thread to request a different pony instead of opening another one?
It's usually not a good idea, especially if you have a request that involved some sort of coding that needs to be read by mathowie and/or pb.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:23 AM on July 19, 2008
It's usually not a good idea, especially if you have a request that involved some sort of coding that needs to be read by mathowie and/or pb.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:23 AM on July 19, 2008
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Or you could get cryptic tags.
posted by carsonb at 4:01 PM on July 18, 2008