Single RSS feed for all comments on all threads I have favorited? January 26, 2011 10:32 PM   Subscribe

Single RSS feed for all comments on all threads I have favorited?

I'd like to not have to add an extra RSS feed to my reader every time I want to 'subscribe' to a thread. What I'd rather do is have one central RSS feed, for me, that contains ALL comments on ALL threads that I have added as favorites.

AFAICT this doesn't currently exist. I don't, for instance, mean the extant feed listing all posts favorited by someone - that's more for tracking what someone else has favorited, not for subscribing to your own interests.

Could y'all make this happen?

Thanks,
Sai
posted by saizai to Feature Requests at 10:32 PM (26 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

I seem to recall pb saying that customized boutique RSS feeds like this would be too taxing on the servers or something. You can always use Recent Activity's "My Favorites" tab to keep up with threads that you've favorited but not necessarily commented on.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:36 PM on January 26, 2011


Thing is, I don't really want to log in to MeFi every day. I forget. The way I keep up with things I need to keep tabs on is my either my RSS reader or automated email.

And the favorites tab doesn't have any sort of 'unviewed comments only' mode, so it's again cognitive load to process.

I'd really prefer some sort of system that would push me all comments on favorited posts, one way or another.
posted by saizai at 10:42 PM on January 26, 2011


pb is not good at forgetting.

posted by clavdivs at 11:04 PM on January 26, 2011


No, RSS won't scale for this. The potential maximum feed size is every comment on every site. Some people favorite things, a lot. Even moderate favoriting would create an unreasonably large feed. There's just no way to reliably serve a feed with dozens of threads worth of comments. I'm sorry the existing tools won't work for how you want to keep up with the site, but this option isn't going to work.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:18 PM on January 26, 2011


I find downloading the entire site every evening, parsing the HTML, exporting to PDF, printing and binding the pages, then sitting down with a glass of scotch and reading through the previous day's comments while scribbling witticisms in the margins works well for me. YMMV.
posted by auto-correct at 11:48 PM on January 26, 2011 [3 favorites]


I have written a truly marvelous witticism, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
posted by maqsarian at 1:31 AM on January 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Thanks,
Sai
posted by saizai


Just sayin'.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:13 AM on January 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


I don't really want to log in to MeFi every day.

what is this i dont even
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:52 AM on January 27, 2011 [5 favorites]


I find that by downloading the entire site every evening, translating the data into a series of numeric matrices, having those matrices converted into a musical notation of my own devising, having that music arranged for SATB choir (with piano and strings on the weekends), and then having that choral work performed for me each night while I sit by the fire with my loving bride, a brace of hunting dogs, and a good Scotch Whisky doesn't exactly enable me to follow MetaFilter, as such, but it's something to do.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:06 AM on January 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


You don't want to log in every day? Simple: Never log out.

People log out?
posted by emelenjr at 7:12 AM on January 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


I just calculate a differential frequency chart of the day's comments every night and do shots of well whiskey whenever a funny word stands out. "Oh look," I say, knocking back some Ezra Brooks, "people said 'poop' a lot again yesterday."
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:13 AM on January 27, 2011 [3 favorites]


Thing is, I don't really want to log in to MeFi every day. I forget.

wow.
posted by terrapin at 8:02 AM on January 27, 2011


Reminds me of a time when I was at a Phish show at Merriweather Post Pavilion and during set break I was queuing for a lemonade. This trustafarian kid approaches me and asks if she can get in line in front of me. I said "No. Sorry. The lines not that long." She replied with "But I'M thirsty!" I told her everyone in the line is thirsty, that's why we are here. The response was "but I'm REALLLLLY thirsty." I told her to fuck off.

No fixing lazy.
posted by terrapin at 8:10 AM on January 27, 2011


@pb if it won't scale because the feed gets too big, why not limit its size to the latest N items?
posted by jewzilla at 8:59 AM on January 27, 2011


I find downloading the entire site every evening, parsing the HTML, exporting to PDF, printing and binding the pages, then sitting down with a glass of scotch and reading through the previous day's comments while scribbling witticisms in the margins works well for me. YMMV.

You're seriously underestimating how awesome this could be.
posted by cashman at 9:18 AM on January 27, 2011


...why not limit its size to the latest N items?

Because the point of feeds is to keep up with everything. If the feed misses something it's supposed to be covering, it's not working properly.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:52 AM on January 27, 2011


MetaFilter: People said "poop" a lot again yesterday.
posted by Zozo at 10:31 AM on January 27, 2011


Thing is, I don't really want to log in to MeFi every day. I forget.

*contemplates own current LeechBlock settings*
*weeps quietly*
posted by Lexica at 10:33 AM on January 27, 2011



Thing is, I don't really want to log in to MeFi every day. I forget.


The fact that this quote made me immediately think of this movie is... well, it's something.

I don't want to say depressing... maybe distressing.

Yeah, that's it. Distressing.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:16 AM on January 27, 2011


Regarding "zomg this is too hard": bullshit.

phpBB manages to email everybody subscribed to a thread with new comments on it.

phpBB SUCKS. You can do at LEAST that much if not better.
posted by saizai at 10:16 PM on January 27, 2011


phpBB manages to email everybody subscribed to a thread with new comments on it.


You seem to think that this is a feature, not a bug. You are mistaken.

You also seem to have some interesting ideas on the proper way to ask people to do something for you.
posted by kagredon at 11:05 PM on January 27, 2011


kagredon: it's a feature when it's opt-in. Can you explain what's buggy about opt-in subscription notification?
posted by saizai at 11:32 PM on January 27, 2011


saizai, sending email and hosting RSS feeds are two completely different activities. We host thousands of RSS feeds here at MetaFilter that get a decent amount of traffic. We have a good sense of what works and what doesn't work with feeds.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:42 AM on January 28, 2011


pb - My apologies for any unclarity on my part.

Please interpret my request as "provide some kind of per-user opt-in push notification of all comments to that user's favorited threads".

I would prefer if that is done as an individual RSS feed, but email would work also.
posted by saizai at 4:22 PM on January 28, 2011


I think you're going to be out of luck on this one saizai, I'm sorry. We're not going to send an email notification every time a comment is added to a thread, either. Everyone has their favorite ways of keeping up with information. Some of us like email, some Twitter, some IM, some the Web. We can't cater to everyone's favorite way to stay in touch. We provide some tools to help you stay on top of things—Recent Activity for Favorites is the best match for what you're after. If you're away from the site for a few days, a quick look at RA should let you know where activity has been happening.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:56 PM on January 28, 2011


Can you explain what's buggy about opt-in subscription notification?

Like RSS, this can create a huge volume of notifications if you have a sufficiently large user base and post volume. Doing it by email has the extra-fun bonus of inadvertently getting you thrown onto Google/Yahoo/etc.'s spam filters.
posted by kagredon at 8:14 PM on January 28, 2011


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