Comments on: In Which I Ask You Nice People a Question

By: Church

Church — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:34:07 +0000

FWIW, I only follow this feed. Anything that doesn’t show up here doesn’t exist, as far as I’m concerned.

By: zpinzane

zpinzane — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:40:44 +0000

Post interesting stuff like that on both please. With RSS feed subscriptions being at a premium, I’d appreciate not having to subscribe to another.

By: Shannon Harris

Shannon Harris — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:28:26 +0000

I agree with Mike above…
The number of posts per day from the two blogs is not so numerous that moving past the ocasional double in my Google Reader feed is going to bother me.

By: Drew Wallner

Drew Wallner — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:47:40 +0000

I may be in a statistically unimportant minority, and I realize that, but I’d very much appreciate non-duplicated content. I read a lot of different feeds from various blogs and blog communities, and whenever one starts posting duplicated content from another, I feel like I have to make a frustrated call and delete one to avoid the hassle (even if I like them both). Compared to the above comments, I know this must sound selfish or demanding, but it’s how I feel.

By: l.m.orchard

l.m.orchard — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:31:58 +0000

Funny – I never subscribed to the feed on the other blog, since I assumed it would all appear here first anyway Fixing that assumption now, but for what it’s worth any duplicate content won’t perturb me one bit.

By: Will Schenk

Will Schenk — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:23:52 +0000

Jason, I don’t think is matters really, if I recognize something pushing “n” isn’t a big deal. The only thing that I would suggest is that if you cross post, make the posts exactly the same. So that way it’s not like you need to worry about missing a different kicker at the end or something like that.

By: Rubes

Rubes — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:07:02 +0000

I think Malcolm’s right for the most part. I have no issue with just moving past the duplicates, but probably the more elegant solution is to just post a short pointer to the other blog instead of duplicating the entry. That way, people are directed over there, see the other blog, and potentially subscribe to the feed.

By: Mike Whalen

Mike Whalen — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:14:24 +0000

Malcolm,

I wonder if your note about guids will come down to the reader. I use Google Reader and I sincerely don’t know whether it’s smart enough to not show literally the same content if it’s in the ATOM feeds for ASCII and INVENTORY.

As to the original question, this will only bother me after a time if I have to page through dozens/hundreds/thousands of items a day. I tend to filter and read all my feeds as they were posted rather than clicking individual feeds, reading them, then moving to another.

But this website and Jason’s other sites haven’t really had the publishing frequency of, say, Gizmodo. If Jason were to start publishing that frequently AND there were literally two of EVERY post, you can bet I’d unsubscribe from one.

By: Mike Whalen

Mike Whalen — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:13:11 +0000

Malcolm,

By: Malcolm Tredinnick

Malcolm Tredinnick — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:05:02 +0000

I suspect it ultimately won’t matter much, unless you’re thinking there’s going to be lots of duplicated content. We’ll see the repeated posts now and again and quickly move on. Still, a short piece here pointing to the relevant piece over there is probably a nicer way to do it. Keeps all the comments in one place, for example.

Also, what with this being the 21st century and all, you can even post the titles of the most recent posts on the other blog in a widget on this blog, so that visitors using Ye Olde Web Browser will see there’s a connection.

(The real solution for the feed reading brigade is that if the posts are identical, they should have the same guid in the Atom feed — and only use Atom, not RSS. Then feed readers should only show one. There are about five pieces of that puzzle that don’t work reliably yet, sadly: from setting the guid manually, to phasing out RSS support, to feed readers understanding what the spec says they should do. So I’m not holding my breath on that being realistic right this minute.)

Definitely cross-post when appropriate, though. I’d forgotten that the I hadn’t subscribed to the GET LAMP blog yet and I’m sure you’ll get new people stumbling in who only find one or the other.