Friday, September 30, 2005

RootsWeb RSS

I'm a bit behind on email and the feeds I subscribe to, but I don't recall (or haven't yet seen) the announcement that RootsWeb has added RSS feeds to the archive page of each mailing list. Well, at least the ones I just checked.

I sort of like this idea, but I think it's a little flawed. I would in fact rather deal with those messages through Bloglines, but wouldn't I be getting duplicates every day because there's no way to turn off the email? Of course, I could unsubscribe from each list, but then I couldn't post new messages. Well, I could, but then each list admin's job just got more time consuming as they'd have to approve or forward what I and every other non-subscriber submitted.

I suppose the feeds will put an end to the constant problem of ISPs tagging the mailing lists as spam and people missing messages. Is RootsWeb prepared to educate people about RSS, though? I mean, there are still a fair number that think the mailing list is a newsgroup or can't grasp the concept of gatewayed messages and how to reply.

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1 comment:

Drew Smith said...

Well, you could receive the posts via the RSS feed, but set your subscription setting for each list so that you don't get mail from it, which would still allow you to post. That way you wouldn't get duplicates.

Drew Smith