6 ms·

The news and best links don't help avoid the long tail. best is too static; it rarely changes. And http://news.ycombinator.com/rss http://news.ycombinator.co

by ralph 19y ago

The news and best links don't help avoid the long tail. best is too static; it rarely changes. And http://news.ycombinator.com/rss http://news.ycombinator.com/rss presents too much dross. Dross which is hard to for my brain to filter because each item has too little info so I end up having to visit every thread and then often each linked external article. (Thanks for starting to add (comments) to the title.)

bootload 19y ago
"... (Thanks for starting to add (comments) to the title.) ..." Believe me it makes a difference & really solves the crappy title problem. But it can be improved. I haven't used the the rss feed much ( http://news.ycombinator.com/rss http://news.ycombinator.com/rss ) but doing so I found that there is a cut-off on the browser I use (Firefox = toolbars = bookmarks ) toolbar cuts the text off at 40 characters. So If the title contains the most accurate info in the first 40 characters it even works in the RSS feeds (reader) with readers truncating the rest of the message. The other problem I noticed with the RSS feed is the transporting you to the direct link, not the news.yc feed which as the original link in the title. So rule of thumb: good title in 40 char http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/587744795/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/587744795/
- ralph 19y ago
  It's unfortunate that some RSS readers limit the amount of displayed text, e.g. Firefox's menu items. As for the RSS linking to the external article, the feed has both that URL and a "comments" URL. Some RSS readers appear not to show or give access to the comments URL, others do. For those that give both, I choose the comments one first to get more of a clue as to whether anyone bothered to comment. There are posts elsewhere about some RSS readers ignoring the comments URL and what if anything can be done.

by ralph 19y ago

bootload 19y ago

"... (Thanks for starting to add (comments) to the title.) ..." Believe me it makes a difference & really solves the crappy title problem. But it can be improved. I haven't used the the rss feed much ( http://news.ycombinator.com/rss http://news.ycombinator.com/rss ) but doing so I found that there is a cut-off on the browser I use (Firefox = toolbars = bookmarks ) toolbar cuts the text off at 40 characters. So If the title contains the most accurate info in the first 40 characters it even works in the RSS feeds (reader) with readers truncating the rest of the message. The other problem I noticed with the RSS feed is the transporting you to the direct link, not the news.yc feed which as the original link in the title. So rule of thumb: good title in 40 char http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/587744795/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/587744795/

ralph 19y ago
It's unfortunate that some RSS readers limit the amount of displayed text, e.g. Firefox's menu items. As for the RSS linking to the external article, the feed has both that URL and a "comments" URL. Some RSS readers appear not to show or give access to the comments URL, others do. For those that give both, I choose the comments one first to get more of a clue as to whether anyone bothered to comment. There are posts elsewhere about some RSS readers ignoring the comments URL and what if anything can be done.