Also, can we get a Favicon for the MB please? It’s long overdue.
Yeah, there totally used to be one. Yellow “SD” in a purple square. I still have it in my favorites. It must’ve just disappeared with the changes. 
I think mostly RSS is useful for people with “mobile devices” – smartphones, Blackberries, and the like – who want to read the Dope there instead of on their computers.
Some folks don’t have time to cruise the board and just want to skim so they subscribe to an RSS feed and look at links on their computer in their own time on their own browsers. It’s another way to aggregate content from around the web, you subscribe to the feeds you want and look at the results in a pile instead of going to each site. Your machine does the walking for you.
For those folks RSS is useful.
It would probably be even more useful on the rest of the site where people could read the front page and the columns through the feed and we’re working on that as well but that’s a different situation than the boards and handled by different people. I have no idea when – or if – we’ll get that going on.
It seems to exist for www.straightdope.com i.e. Cecil’s Columns but there’s nothing for boards.straightdope.com i.e. the Message Board.
I’ve always wondered why Firefox and IE make such a big deal over implementing it. I can see it’s use if you use Outlook as your RSS reader, but on FF3 or IE is seems redundant and more clumsy than, you know, going to the website.
Besides the benefits of RSS listed above, even while using a web browser to view the feeds, there are far more when taking the data outside of the web browser. RSS feeds are delivered in XML format, a standard and consistent protocol, making it possible for 3rd parties to write their own readers/displays without knowing anything about the source of the information. Anyone who wishes to learn a little bit about XML and style sheets can write just about anything they want in order to read and display the data in the feed. For example this nifty little gizmo displays RSS feeds directly on your Windows desktop in real time. There are hundreds of other gadgets out there that make use of RSS feeds in novel ways. Because the data is delivered in a standard format for all RSS feeds these applications work with every RSS feed out there without knowing anything at all about the data they are about to read and display.
There’s also the fact that with an RSS reader, the reader usually has an actual working method of tracking which posts you’ve read, not just which ones are new after a certain date. If I visit the SDMB right now and there are 50 new threads but I only read one of them, then I close the browser and open it up in 15 minutes, it acts as if I’ve read all 50 of those threads (they’re no longer new). A good RSS reader keeps track of this.
If you want to see what I’m talking about, try out Google Reader ( http://www.google.com/reader ). It’s actually a pretty good web-based RSS reader.
I think there’s something wrong with your browser. Mine tracks the threads I’ve read and the ones which are new since I last loaded the page just fine.
I’m not sure you’re getting my point. If you go to this page, are there any bold threads? If not, did you actually read all of those threads?
This is the way it has always functioned for me too, though I’m not sure it’s linked to closing the browser so much as the session timing out.
Tuba, is it possible we might finally get the group feature back? It seemed like a lot of Dopers were really interested in that and I eagerly look forward to its (hopeful) implementation. Either way though, I thank you guys in advance for your consideration in this matter.
I just want to support Tubadiva’s assertion that the primary function of the board is to inform - it’s a literary event constructed of words and ideas. As such, the little smilies are more than enough glitz. Engagement without intellect is mere entertainment, and the web is filled with sites for people to got to for entertainment, videos, twitters, pictures, bells, and whistles. Dopers are entertained by ideas, and that’s how this board should function. KISS.
- Can we please have the post count and location for “Guests” turned back on? Having it turned off reduces the functionality of the board for everyone else, not the Guests. Knowing post counts helps us to better understand posts by putting them in context. For example, if I see a post that is uncustomarily hostile or snarky for the SDMB, the first thing I do is look at the post count – if the person in question only has a few hundred posts, then I know that he’s probably just not quite familiar with the mores of the board just yet; on the other hand, if the person has a few *thousand *posts, then chances are the poster either has a personal problem with the target of his snark, or is simply a jerk.
And if, for some reason, TPTB don’t buy the concept of post counts being useful things, then they’re still nice to have as simple curiosities, which alone should be sufficient justification for them in the absence of a really compelling argument for their deactivation.
2) Has there been any talk of reducing the amount of time between searches? As is frequently mentioned, the 5 minute search lockout is very annoying, as well as being (in my experience) quite unusual, even for large message boards. Could we at least try reducing the lockout to, say, 1 minute, to test whether it has any meaningful result on board speed?
- Greatest hits Part II: is there any chance of an experiment with permitting simple, unobtrusive avatars (which, of course, could be disabled by those who don’t wish to view them)?
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Is this the cool new stuff that was being promised 4 years ago?
Is that it ???
Bumping one gratuitous time to ask again about the group feature and then I think I’ll shut up and quit bothering whoever is listening.
Thanks to anyone who can help me out.
I’m still kind of curious to hear Omniscient’s answer to my question to figure out if it’s me that’s crazy or him.
I’m in support of Avatars. Take a look at the new spin off boards… they both allow avatars, and the only posters with annoying, immature ones, are just as annoying/immature with their words o this board. Allow them for a week or so, and see how it goes. I don;t mean to tun this thread into another avatar war, but the people who are against them don’t have to see them. They aren’t even inconvenienced if the default is to have them turned off.
I’m curious about why you want avatars. They can be entertaining to look at, but in general I find them distracting. I realize everyone is different, just curious what advantages you see.
Not a big fan of avatars myself, but they make it a bit easier to identify posters at a glance, especially if there are multiple people with similar usernames.
I can see that. I tend to get distracted by them, maybe over time I would get used to it. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to mentally block out the animated avatars that some posters have on some sites I go to.