@pat Good points. The /feeds convention seems fine, and I'm all for it if it helps people use RSS more, but I also think it's solving the wrong problem. The actually hard part is what to do with the feed URL when someone discovers it.
@manton Great point. It would be nice if macOS let you set a feed reader again. It's tiring having to copy and paste feed URLs into NetNewsWire even though I'm technical enough to
a) know what a feed reader is, and b) know how to manually add feeds.
This is one area where it feels things have only gotten worse as time passes.
@pat to be honest, I think having a convention like this is totally unnecessary. Every feed reader I’ve ever used has had no problem finding the RSS/JSON feed from the URL.
@jsonbecker So long as the site includes the standard links in the site’s head, that should work for any reader that looks for links of type application/rss+xml, but Marcus is right that part of what’s missing is discoverability.
I’m for increasing awareness of feeds. I’m against arbitrarily saying “my decision is now the standard” without any process for defining the standard or even questioning whether a standard is the right approach.
@manton One more note: I think you’re right to use the word “convention” rather than “standard” because words have meaning.
Marcus’s claim that “a growing amount of personal website owners agreed on URL design standards” is false until you change the word “standards” with “conventions.”
@pat I hear yah, but I guess what I mean is I’m in Manton’s camp that feed discoverability is not a huge issue. It’s just knowing you can use feeds at all, and that I don’t think will be solved by prominent /feeds pages. That said, I think professional journalism/blog sites should do better to show topical feeds, but I find most have that somewhere.
@jsonbecker How would someone come to know they can use feeds? I learned about feed readers because the sites I was reading promoted their feeds. I would argue that a lot of people came to social media when feed readers were on the way down and have no idea they're an option.
@pat my gut says this is like asking how do you tell people about a web browser or about Facebook— it’s the job of the Feedbin/Feedly, NetNewsWire/Reeder etc to advertise their experience, not bloggers promoting that RSS exists on a top level nav link that’ll move the needle.
@pat 🤷🏻♂️ I don’t mean to be argumentative. I’ve been shocked to find out how many of my friends also used Google Reader, also mourn it, and don’t know that apps still exist with that functionality. They didn’t forget about RSS, they lost the application that helped them use it. I think everyone who blogs wants RSS to be used more and we’re all fighting the good fight. I’m not against having RSS feeds prominent at all. My point is more this: I don’t think standardizing on a /feeds URL, which you’re conflicted about anyway, is going to lead to broader awareness or adoption of feeds.
@pat I'm definitely with @manton that knowledge about RSS is a bigger issue than discoverability but can't see the harm in adopting conventions. I've got my "Join Me" page which includes my main feeds and subscribe form but have now added a /feeds page. If it helps some people find it because it's what they expect then great. if not then it's just some text on a page.
@jsonbecker I used Google reader from 2008 to when it was shut down in 2013. It took me until just recently to find the right RSS reader for me.
.@pat Right, all that post was just suggesting was to have a page for the feeds so they're easily discoverable. I see no reason not to have that, although there are other ways to find feeds.
..@pat Just put the newsletter subscription form somewhere else on your blog. Or heaven for bid put it on the feeds page.
@jsonbecker Although it did for me back in the day. I saw RSS all over people's blogs and I was like hmm, what's this?
@pat is it just me - but that link gives me a 404 ... deleted all the stuff and found the blog which I like - so subscribed ... into feedbin - though feed URL wasn’t obvious - but still can’t find that post!!!
All very meta!