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I’m glad to see that you’re using Atom rather than RSS, but you’re still calling it RSS. Can I convince you to stop calling it that? It’s factually inaccurate,

I’m glad to see that you’re using Atom rather than RSS, but you’re still calling it RSS. Can I convince you to stop calling it that? It’s factually inaccurate, and keeps RSS, the inferior format, more popular by virtue of mindshare. Just call them feeds, the proper generic term.

nvr219 5y ago
If OP didn't use the word RSS and said "atom feeds" I wouldn't know what they're talking about, so I recommend keep calling it RSS.
- slightwinder 5y ago
  The generic name for this is Newsfeed (or webfeed according to wikipedia, but never heard this in the wild). Would you understand it with those names?
moehm 5y ago
Same problem with SSL encryption. But with both RSS and SSL, if the user use a modern client, he shouldn't bother if its internally using RSS, Atom, SSL or TLS. I for one know most of my pals do know about RSS, but haven't heard the term 'Atom feed'.
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  “SSL” is finally dying as a term; the significant majority of what I see calls it TLS now. But the problem didn’t exist in the same way with SSL/TLS: SSL was actively killed off in favour of TLS so that regardless of what you call it, you’re actually dealing with TLS. But with feeds, RSS is still supported, and so the mindshare problem happens: people hear about RSS and so implement the inferior and problematic RSS rather than Atom, because they’ve never even heard of Atom and so don’t know that it’s what they should have implemented instead, because it’s more robust. Calling feeds RSS perpetuates RSS, which is undesirable. I say just advertise it as “feeds”, not “RSS feeds”. Atom is an implementation detail, just like RSS should be. (Well, RSS should be dead in general feeds, with only podcast feeds keeping it alive.)
  - bscphil 5y ago
    > I say just advertise it as “feeds”, not “RSS feeds”. I think that's even worse. For most ordinary people that has a bunch of unintended meanings. "My Facebook has a feed, do you mean subscribing to your site on Facebook? Why do I see a bunch of code when I click the link?"
    - slightwinder 5y ago
      I think it's the oposite. People continuing calling it RSS is limiting there understanding of this domain. Most people are all about RSS this, reviving that and talk about the specific format, instead of the purpose for which RSS is actually used. This also leads to rather poor solutions and discussions which are just reinventing the old stuff again and again, instead of letting the domain evolve to match modern demand. Take for example this project here. Is there any feedreader out there who has this built-in to make it comfortable for the user to use this? The state of tooling as I know it is still at the level were we have seperate tools which pushes out a newsfeed-format, which than must be maintainend seperatly in our feedreaders. Which is an extraordinary hazzle to maintain configurations on multiple places.
      - bscphil 5y ago
        > Take for example this project here. Is there any feedreader out there who has this built-in to make it comfortable for the user to use this? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the question. This project is easy to use in all feed readers precisely because it just generates a feed URL that you can subscribe to like any other feed. On the other hand, maybe you're asking why the feed readers don't have this feature built in. Some of them do! The one I've used for years, Inoreader, has it, although it might be a premium feature. On the other other hand, sometimes it seems from your comment like your issue is with the very idea of RSS. That a website can publish a feed in a well-defined / open format and that feed can then be consumed by any conforming reader. That's as I see it the beauty of the whole system. I don't need to use the site itself, if it sucks. I can subscribe to anything I like using whatever software I like, rather than relying on a centralized service. What's the alternative, something like Twitter where I subscribe to a bunch of accounts and they push whatever they like into my feed?
- justshowpost 5y ago
  SSL is TLS looks similar but aren't the same. Today, we use TLS.
pmlnr 5y ago
Oh, yes, please revive the bloody format wars /s
alanfranz 5y ago
I do not care. RSS and Atom both win over closed platforms. If I could get back to an RSS-oriented internet, I would rejoice even if Atom didn’t exist.
account42 5y ago
RSS is fine for most uses, and is a much better "brand" than Atom. There never was a valid reason to define a separate format rather than extending RSS to clarify ambiguities - I think its time to drop this bikeshedding and just think of Atom as a slightly different type of RSS.

nvr219 5y ago

If OP didn't use the word RSS and said "atom feeds" I wouldn't know what they're talking about, so I recommend keep calling it RSS.

slightwinder 5y ago
The generic name for this is Newsfeed (or webfeed according to wikipedia, but never heard this in the wild). Would you understand it with those names?

moehm 5y ago

Same problem with SSL encryption. But with both RSS and SSL, if the user use a modern client, he shouldn't bother if its internally using RSS, Atom, SSL or TLS. I for one know most of my pals do know about RSS, but haven't heard the term 'Atom feed'.

chrismorgan 5y ago
“SSL” is finally dying as a term; the significant majority of what I see calls it TLS now. But the problem didn’t exist in the same way with SSL/TLS: SSL was actively killed off in favour of TLS so that regardless of what you call it, you’re actually dealing with TLS. But with feeds, RSS is still supported, and so the mindshare problem happens: people hear about RSS and so implement the inferior and problematic RSS rather than Atom, because they’ve never even heard of Atom and so don’t know that it’s what they should have implemented instead, because it’s more robust. Calling feeds RSS perpetuates RSS, which is undesirable. I say just advertise it as “feeds”, not “RSS feeds”. Atom is an implementation detail, just like RSS should be. (Well, RSS should be dead in general feeds, with only podcast feeds keeping it alive.)
- bscphil 5y ago
  > I say just advertise it as “feeds”, not “RSS feeds”. I think that's even worse. For most ordinary people that has a bunch of unintended meanings. "My Facebook has a feed, do you mean subscribing to your site on Facebook? Why do I see a bunch of code when I click the link?"
  - slightwinder 5y ago
    I think it's the oposite. People continuing calling it RSS is limiting there understanding of this domain. Most people are all about RSS this, reviving that and talk about the specific format, instead of the purpose for which RSS is actually used. This also leads to rather poor solutions and discussions which are just reinventing the old stuff again and again, instead of letting the domain evolve to match modern demand. Take for example this project here. Is there any feedreader out there who has this built-in to make it comfortable for the user to use this? The state of tooling as I know it is still at the level were we have seperate tools which pushes out a newsfeed-format, which than must be maintainend seperatly in our feedreaders. Which is an extraordinary hazzle to maintain configurations on multiple places.
    - bscphil 5y ago
      > Take for example this project here. Is there any feedreader out there who has this built-in to make it comfortable for the user to use this? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the question. This project is easy to use in all feed readers precisely because it just generates a feed URL that you can subscribe to like any other feed. On the other hand, maybe you're asking why the feed readers don't have this feature built in. Some of them do! The one I've used for years, Inoreader, has it, although it might be a premium feature. On the other other hand, sometimes it seems from your comment like your issue is with the very idea of RSS. That a website can publish a feed in a well-defined / open format and that feed can then be consumed by any conforming reader. That's as I see it the beauty of the whole system. I don't need to use the site itself, if it sucks. I can subscribe to anything I like using whatever software I like, rather than relying on a centralized service. What's the alternative, something like Twitter where I subscribe to a bunch of accounts and they push whatever they like into my feed?
justshowpost 5y ago
SSL is TLS looks similar but aren't the same. Today, we use TLS.

pmlnr 5y ago

Oh, yes, please revive the bloody format wars /s

alanfranz 5y ago

I do not care. RSS and Atom both win over closed platforms. If I could get back to an RSS-oriented internet, I would rejoice even if Atom didn’t exist.

account42 5y ago

RSS is fine for most uses, and is a much better "brand" than Atom. There never was a valid reason to define a separate format rather than extending RSS to clarify ambiguities - I think its time to drop this bikeshedding and just think of Atom as a slightly different type of RSS.