Question on RSS feeds

Beowulf · 11-07-06, 10:13 AM

Woody,

Trying RSS feeds for the first time and using FF 2.0 Active Bookmarks. Refresh doesn't seem to work. In fact, I can't figure out exactly what the RSS feed is (or isn't) doing.

First set up it seemed to DL just the "New" threads in the Forum that I was testing with. When I go to "Thread Tools" and "Mark all as Read", then refresh the feed, all the threads are still showing up in the Active Bookmark drop-down box.

What am I doing wrong?

Also, our local club is considering moving to 'Mud but we have several members that are asking about periodic notices via e-mail. It seems the options are "daily" and "Weekly" at the forum level. They would have to log on to 'Mud and find "New" threads, then subscribe to the new threads to enable being notified immediately when a new post has be made to their subscribed threads.

Am I understanding the above correctly?
Is there a way to simulate what they are used to getting with Yahoo groups? (i.e. an e-mail whenever there is a post to the list.)

-B-

woody · 11-07-06, 10:40 AM

you can subscribe to the entire forum, to one section of the forum or to individual threads...you'll get an email when something new is posted - one or 10 new posts = one email to remind you to check...

RSS is on a time-delay and wholly separate from the cookies in the forum...if you use RSS in MyYahoo for instance, if you checked once daily, you'd at least get a good flavor for what updates have happened to that forum section.

Beowulf · 11-07-06, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by woody

RSS is on a time-delay and wholly separate from the cookies in the forum...

What is the duration of the time-delay? Is this time-delay configurable on my workstation or is the time-delay imposed by the 'Mud forum?

FYI, I added TAGS to this thread and did a search (clicked on the hotlink) for one of the multi-word links and got nothing... nada.

"Sorry - no tag matches. Please try some different terms." (Used TAG=RSS)

I'll keep trying the searching with the TAGS to see what's up.

-B-

woody · 11-07-06, 11:05 AM

The time delay isn't controlled by the forum or by your workstation...it's "just how" RSS works. I have a RSS feed from my sis-in-law's blog and it's about 3 hours from her posting to me catching the update on MyYahoo. It will not auto-update the minute you post.

TLCA run's RSS updates on their home page for the TLCAforum stuff and I run them on the 'MUD home page for the tech stuff as well. My suggestion? have someone setup the RSS for a club corner in their MyYahoo (or other) and try it for a few weeks to see how they like it...IMO, it's a quick way to get a summary of what's going on, and for a lower-traffic club corner it should be quite effective.

The TAGS settings are a bit new to me too, I haven't checked with the BoardTracker folks on it's operation...it IS experimental tho, and it operates externally on their servers, so it's out of my control there.

woody · 11-07-06, 11:07 AM

and, IMO, the best periodic notices are still by subscribing to that specific club section - I sub to the WI corner and get one email daily when something has been posted there....easy reminder to go check...however, you will NOT get another reminder until you've checked that section...subscribers may find that they delete that email and then don't remember to check...and never get a reminder again...