Revisiting Favorites - RSS Pony Request

August 2, 2008 12:43 PM

Getting your own Favorites as an RSS feed?

Yeah, I know this has been asked previously and people were concerned about stalking. But - what about an RSS feed only when one is authenticated, only for ones' OWN favorites.

posted by jkaczor to Feature Requests at 12:43 PM (16 comments total)

Or - did I miss something in the FAQ/wiki and just asking for things that already exist?
posted by jkaczor at 12:44 PM on August 2, 2008

Really, you need a feed for your favorites? You can't just look on the site, you need a feed?

Are you a hipster?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:56 PM on August 2, 2008

yeah, dude, its like two extra clicks.
posted by sunshinesky at 1:01 PM on August 2, 2008

what about an RSS feed only when one is authenticated

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, this implies that there's authentication going on between a feed reader and mefi, which kind of makes it a no go from the start.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:14 PM on August 2, 2008

This way you can actually leave the house and be notified whenever someone notices you via whatever clickamoid gadget you employ. You no longer have to stay indoors all night refreshing the page. Can no one see the incredible value in this??
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 1:24 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Isn't this how the My Ask feeds work? Not authenticated, but hashed.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 1:38 PM on August 2, 2008

or baked?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:11 PM on August 2, 2008

>Unless I'm misunderstanding you, this implies that there's authentication going on
>between a feed reader and mefi, which kind of makes it a no go from the start.

Why is it different than the authentication mechanism already used by my client-side browser? I have a client-side feed-reader which allows me to setup a username/password for each URL. Other than the user-agent string, why should it matter to mefi which HTTP-compliant mechanism I use to connect?
posted by jkaczor at 2:14 PM on August 2, 2008

>This way you can actually leave the house

No - this way I can take the "n-hundred" posts and sort/categorize them, much like bookmarks.

>whenever someone notices you via whatever

This is not being "favorited-by-others" - these are the links I have chosen to select as favorites for my own use. Fundamentally different IMO than favoriting someone's comment/personage. I could give a shit how many people "favorite-me".
posted by jkaczor at 2:21 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

That's actually a nice idea. I use Bloglines and have a folder set up for all feeds that relate to personal account activity. This way I don't have to check Flickr, MeFi, Del.icio.us, Co.mments, craigslist, and Blogger separately to see if there's been any activity on my photos, comments, posts, etc. It's where I go for self-esteem. Or a reality check.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:21 PM on August 2, 2008

>Are you a hipster?

Hah - I think that would kill the movement instantly - two kids, married with a beer-gut and absolutely no fashion/style-sense, plus I work for the borg... Maybe I should join.

No - I am a "paying" member of a web-site, asking for a feature. Part of what makes this place great is the community and the participation of it's members. Not being able to get the posts I consider "useful" and manage 'em bugs me. But, then again it's not my site - but I hope for less "lock-in" than other sites out there...

If feeds weren't useful, then why provide any?
posted by jkaczor at 2:30 PM on August 2, 2008

>This way you can actually leave the house

But yet, here you are? Saturday?

(me, I'm hiding from the gossipy neighbour-lady who managed to capture my wife and turn a 5 minute conversation into a 2-hour complete waste-of-time - plus, it's cool in my basement lair...)
posted by jkaczor at 2:32 PM on August 2, 2008

>Isn't this how the My Ask feeds work? Not authenticated, but hashed.

Well - this is exactly how I would envision the feature behaving, but I just tried in the "other" browser (where I do not cache credentials) and it lets me see all of my posts non-authenticated anyways.
posted by jkaczor at 2:44 PM on August 2, 2008

This is not being "favorited-by-others" - these are the links I have chosen to select as favorites for my own use.

Oh. Well that actually sounds useful. Mucho apologies.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:00 PM on August 2, 2008

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, this implies that there's authentication going on between a feed reader and mefi, which kind of makes it a no go from the start.

I subscribe to several authenticated feeds. They use HTTP authentication, not login forms. So it's technically possible. Is there some other reason this is a no go?
posted by scottreynen at 3:36 PM on August 2, 2008

scottreynen: Is there some other reason this is a no go?

I don't know how secure mefi's forms are (I don't logout), but basic HTTP authentication is inherently insecure.
posted by philomathoholic at 11:04 AM on August 3, 2008