Stu, I, for one, am guilty of this. Why did I choose to do it?
It took me over a month, in some cases twice that long, to even get the status of some of the feeds into the "awaiting approval" queue The size of this queue is large, to put it mildly. I saw no evidence to the contrary that these feeds would do anything other than linger in that state for who knows how much longer. I can vouch for the quality and validity of the feeds since I am a developer and wrote the software that delivers the channels, as well as authored the content. The content itself, in most cases, is directly related to RSS, feeds and syndication rather than "Why I named my dog Spot" or, "Visit this site for free stuff" (porn). I've also tried to use the newer features of the service such as adding tags to feeds. However, I seem to be unique in this regard, or perhaps no one else save Jeff is tagging feeds that relate to RSS topics. I would love to contribute: suggest, review and approve peer feeds. I've tried to do it on several occasions. The system is so slow that at times that it is unusable. I cannot tell you how many times in the past few weeks I've tried, only to get one of: request timed out connection refused too many mysql connections etc I've also seen a growing pattern of people coming to this list to ask other reviewers to approve their feeds for them. Which, to me, doesn't seem all that much different from asking the teacher if you can go to the bathroom. All of this adds up to one primary observation: Why does it have to be so slow, so complicated, so tedious to add a feed to Syndica8? I don't get it. I can, and have, gone to other services, filled out a form, confirmed I was a real person and not some bot, uploaded an OPML of my content, been approved, watched their bot come around and collect the feeds, and have them available to subscribers in the space of an hour or less. Please do not take these remarks as some sweeping bitch-a-thon, but constructive criticism. I really believe you need to retool both your back-end and the front. To a person who either wrote the software or is seasoned at using it, the interface may be second nature. To a newcomer it is very confusing, non intuitive and the response and uptime, well, I won't repeat myself. I welcome any feedback to these comments. If you feel they belong off list, then send me an email. My user ID is dwclifton, and my email address is in the signature below. Thanks, Doug -- Douglas Clifton [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://loadaveragezero.com/ On 25 May 2005 12:33:47 -0000, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > > There is 1 message in this issue. > > Topics in this digest: > > 1. Peer Review (i.e., please don't Approve your own) > From: Stuart Whitmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > ________________________________________________________________________ > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 22:27:27 -0700 > From: Stuart Whitmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Peer Review (i.e., please don't Approve your own) > > Hi all, > > I've noticed several instances lately where people suggest a feed and > later approve it. This defeats the purpose of peer review, and > decreases the value of the review process and Syndicated status for > both the Syndic8 database and you/your feed. > > If you're in a "hurry" to have a feed reviewed, request that via this > list, after making sure that you've checked for obvious show-stoppers > (e.g., at least make sure the feed validates!). If you're not in a > hurry but would still like an earlier review than might otherwise > happen, you're welcome to borrow my idea of a "donkey list" in your > signature. (If you didn't see my comments in an earlier message, to > explain why I call it a donkey list, watch the original Shrek on DVD > and watch what Donkey does on the disc menu.) > > If there is a problem with your feed and you want to approve it > anyway, it's not going to help your purposes as much as correcting the > problem, because potential subscribers may not be able to subscribe > (and will thus go find another feed instead of yours) due to the > unfixed flaw in the feed. > > It's in your own best interest, and the best interest of the > community, to let the peer review process maximize the value and > validity of the Approved feeds. > > Thanks, I'll get off my soapbox now... :-) > > -- > Stuart "Rattlesnake Stu" Whitmore > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.just-stuart.com/ > Donkey list: 274472, 312203, 356917, 383781 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/Rcy2bD/UOnJAA/cosFAA/IRislB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> If you're getting "too much mail" then send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (this will tell it to stop sending you mail) To change your membership use THIS WEB PAGE: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/join (here you can set your mail to digest, no mail or LEAVE the list) To find more info about Syndicated XML newsfeeds visit http://www.syndic8.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
