Cool URIs don't change also applies to RSS feed
Despite switching from my RSS reader to a Twitter based user generated daily tech watch, I’m still relying on some quality subscriptions, long time followed sites and other resources I won’t talk about. Being forced to spend about 45 minutes in a train every morning means I don’t have a reliable mobile Internet access. That’s OK since my iPhone based NetNewsWires allows me to bring my daily watch offline, and ensure me if not a comfortable trip, at least an intellectual one. I love making myself believe that my reads and thoughts are intellectual, it makes me feel superior without efforts).
While my family was having a well deserved nap, I decided to clean my RSS subscriptions. NetNewsWire has a feature displaying blogs that haven’t published for a while. That’s very handy to detect dead resources. I was kinda surprised to see that a dozen of the 50 sites I still follow hadn’t published anything in 3 monts. Following their author on Twitter, I was pretty sure they actually did, but I realized that I didn’t remember seeing them pop in my reader.
What I did was visiting them to see that their RSS feed had moved without a redirect for their existing subscribers. They had many reasons for moving: switching to another blogware or domain name, Feedburner boycott or God knows. Some of them even published an article saying:
Starting February the 31th, imanasshole.com will move to perfectdouchebag.com, don’t forget to update your bookmarks and RSS feed.
I know it’s easy to whine, and I’m quite good at this (even in English), but I had the same reaction as Liam Gallagher had towards illegal download.
By changing your feed URI without redirecting, you’re just telling your readers they don’t deserve any effort from you. That’s just bullshit, and you’re just assholes. Your subscribers are nice enough to follow you and read you, they even make your stats increase. You may provide something useful to them, I’m actually sure you do, and they may thank you for that. What they’re giving you is priceless. Without their time and attention you wouldn’t even exist. Never forget it.
Published 25 April 2010 at 23h25 Posted in News of the web
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Web usability and user experience are 2 passions I had the chance to turn into professionnal activity.
