This might have been addressed before, but for some reason, as hard as I try, I can’t find a search function for these forums. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right place.
Anyways… I enjoy The Straight Dope, but not enough to keep having it clog up my email. I’d really like to have it pop up in my RSS reader, where this kind of info belongs. Problem is, this website doesn’t seem to have an RSS feed. My question is to the powers that be here. Is there an RSS feed of The Straight Dope? If not, are you planning to create one soon? If not, why not … all the other cool websites have one? You could throw in advertising and I’d guess you’d probably get a lot more readers.
Thanks … and I hope to be reading The Straight Dope soon in Google Reader .
We tried it about a year ago, and it slowed down the server too much. We have outstanding content, but our infrastructure is barely able to keep up with the load as it is. Until there is a much more substantial hardware upgrade, RSS is probably not possible.
The Search function is disabled for Guests. It’s reserved as one of the perks for full, paid membership. Pony up US$15 and you, too, can search with the best of 'em.
I’m a little confused – is the OP referring to just reading the actual Straight Dope columns that are posted on Fridays (and the Staff Reports posted on other days) via RSS, or the message board itself? Sounds like the latter is what was tried a year ago. I can see how that would suck up a huge amount of bandwidth, certainly much more than providing an RSS feed for just the columns would.
I was referring only to the columns. The content is great and so I’m sure advertisers wouldn’t mind paying to have a banner or text ad included in the feed. After a very short time, I’m sure it would pay for itself and then would be a great way to generate revenue.
Also, that might mean you wouldn’t have to charge for access to the forums, which seems kind of silly to me. Anyone can set up a free forum (http://www.freeforums.org/ ) to discuss any topic, including all the topics discussed here. BTW: I’m not trying to flame or anything, just pointing out what, to me, seems obvious.
Anyways… still hoping to get The Straight Dope columns on Google Reader soon.
We have discussed adding a feed to the site for both the columns and the message board, but it has not yet been implemented for the columns. It was tried with the board and caused more technical problems than it was worth.
If/when this happens we’ll be letting everyone know about it, so stay tuned.
The charge isn’t just for running the server. It keep out the rifraf too.
Even if we had a gold-plated server the nominal fee would still have its uses.