Being that I am a bit OCD about categorizing and organizing data, I ‘ve noticed that quite a few posts on the various RSS feeds for ColdFusion contain a lot of /really/ off-topic posts. Given the “large” audience which these feeds reach, and thinking about how most mailing lists are ran (and have been ran for a very long time), it seems to me that these sort of posts should not be aggregated.
I’m not trying to be the skunk at a picnic or start a flame war, but it seems like it would be easy for the various CF bloggers to only RSS ColdFusion content to the Macromedia XML News Aggregator and FullAsAGoog to keep from polluting the CF Feeds with topics not at least somewhat related to CF. It’s not to say I don’t mind reading the non-CF stuff, I just don’t think it belongs in RSS feeds which are supposed to be ColdFusion content. I feel that it takes away from the spirit and intent of the news aggregators in general, not to mention some of the posts lately are starting to really get off-topic. Perhaps they could go into a different category such as “Misc” or something of the sort?
I don’t feel that I need to cite any individual posts as it’s not my intention to call people out or upset anyone, but I think posts relating to technology which can be used with ColdFusion are okay, but posts which are about topics which do not have a direct link to ColdFusion in some way are best left off of an ColdFusion RSS feed. I think a good start would be to think about whether or not a given blog entry would be appropirate for a ColdFusion mailing list/newsgroup. If not, perhaps it should not be posted.
I think in general, the problem is that RSS feeds from a good percentage of the various CF blogs are not being published into categories. Instead, each time someone’s blog is updated, no matter what topic, it’s what is published to the only default RSS feed which the aforementioned sites use. I setup a ColdFusion only RSS feed just for this very purpose as I post all kinds of varying content on my blog which is probably not of interest to someone wanting to learn about the latest and greatest in ColdFusion.
Anyhow, it’s just my opinion. Maybe I’m the only person who has noticed this, but I thought I would rationally point it out and see what others thought. Comments?
3 Responses
mike chambers
01|Jun|2004 1The main problem is that there is not a standard for category names. So one site may use “CF”, one “Cold Fusion”, on “Coding” etc… and the aggregator has no way to know what is relevant.
I think that currently the best solution is to set up a topic specific feed. A lot of sites already do this, but there is no way to enforce the content.
Finally, a lot of people like the off-topic stuff, as it gives them a better feel of the “community”.
just my two cent’s worth. This is not the first time this subject has come up.
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
Roger Benningfield
01|Jun|2004 2Brandon: “I think a good start would be to think about whether or not a given blog entry would be appropirate for a ColdFusion mailing list/newsgroup. If not, perhaps it should not be posted.”
Two things:
(1) I couldn’t disagree more. No writer should feel she needs to censor herself just to please the consumers of a downstream feed that aggregates her content.
A couple of my blogs are aggregated by MXNA and the Goog… but they’re also aggregated by Kinja and other non-CF-related services. Those services and people don’t want my feeds stripped of non-CF content.
(2) Categories are nice, but they have problems. As Mike suggests, there is no standard naming convention, and little incentive to enforce one. Beyond that, categories are also limited, since they are used for all sorts of purposes, and aren’t always under the control of the individual user.
Brandon Harper
02|Jun|2004 3Mike,
Yes, that was basically what I was trying to convey– RSS feeds via category. I know it would be impossible to “police” them, and I don’t think it’s something that should even have to be done, Mostly I just wanted to point-out that it would be helpful if people were to start providing an RSS feed which was topical only. It’s a very easy thing to do.
Roger,
I didn’t mean to sound like someone should censor themselves.. rather they should just use topical RSS feeds.. if they aren’t using one, it would help for them to realize that if they are writing about beanie babies, it will also get posted to the various CF RSS feeds even though it had nothing to do with what the aggregators are created for.
For instance, you wouldn’t post a message to the CF-Talk list at the HouseOfFusion saying you had a job opening when there was a CF-Jobs list for that sort of posting. That’s essentially what I meant by not posting something, not that you should not post altogether.
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