Syndication

[andrewducker]

If you aren't happy about your whole journal being syndicated, check out this to see how you can cut it down.  Removing it entirely is planned for 'soon'.

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

The more syndication, the better, IMHO.

Let's get that googlejuice flowing!

[andrewducker]

Oh, I loooove syndication. A good third of my friends list is syndicated from elsewhere.

But I also think that people that want their journal to be in one place should have the choice to not make it easy for others.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

The problem I have with headline or paragraph-level syndication is that these techniques tend to be used by sites that have a advertising-based revenue model (which in most cases syndication bypasses) - and I'm increasingly less likely to click through to the site in question.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

(continuing the thought)

LJ is about sharin, not advertising, so why should it cloak content in that manner, especially when it has adequate tools for preventing syndication outside of LJ? If you don't want the world to see what you're saying - make it friends only.

[andrewducker]

LJ isn't "about sharing". It's about whatever people want it to be about.

And it _doesn't_ have adequate tools for preventing syndication outside of LJ - it currently automatically provides full RSS feeds! Some people are happy for their journal to be _here_ but don't want it to be shared elsewhere. I don't see why we should force them to do so.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

But they're not forced - there are adequate mechanisms in place already.

The message I get from this is that LJ should remain a ghetto, not a first-class citizen of syndication space...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

By adequate - I mean that friends-only posts do not get syndicated. That seems perfectly workable to me, and I've used that method mreo than once.

[andrewducker]

And that's fine for _you_. But not everyone is happy with that, and I can't think of a single reason to give people choice.

Why are you opposed to people choosing for themselves?

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Because the choice shouldn't be about how you create information - it should be how you read it. Why should readers be locked into one way of viewing content? After all, I could just take your content and put it through a custom LJ view and turn it into public RSS anyway...

There's a fundamental issue here, and it's a complex one - and I know I have very utopian views. However it's also why I made the decision to make sure that my LJ, Flickr and Moblog content is CC licensed.

Whay I firmly believe (and have believed since I started posting on Usenet back in the 80s) is that information in a public forum should be available in as many formats as possible, and in as open a manner as possible. If you haven't friends-locked a post, then it's in public space. Anything else is a step along the road to a balkanised digital dark ages.

(You've actually caught me in the middle of writing a piece on the evils of proprietary file systems for Teh Grauniad, so rant mode is firmly on!)

[andrewducker]

There is no 'syndication space' or 'citizenship'. There are _people_ who should be allowed to _choose_ what to do with their own writing.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Once you have RSS, you have a common space for sharing content. It behooves anyone with the capability to use that commons fairly.

I have the right to choose how I format and view the content. It's in the original HTML specifications.

[andrewducker]

Yes - you have the right to format it however you like on your computer. But you don't have the right to republish - that's a clear breach of copyright.

You'll note that every so often the dilbert comics feed gets shut down, as the rights holder complains that it's being scraped.

Is that any different?

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

It's simple - put your writings on a site without RSS feeds. If someone then copies them to another site then they're in breach of copyright and you can use the law to punish them - or whatever.

I agree that LJ should allow people to switch off RSS for their journals if they want. They don't though, but it's not as though we're forced to use LJ, right? Like most things, there's stuff you like and stuff you don't...

[andrewducker]

I don't actually mind that. I read, for instance, Something Positive, and the creator depends on adverts to suppoprt the site. He syndicates a link which I can then follow to see the actual comic - I get to see a comic, he gets a small amount of money, we're both happy.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

But you can use feedburner to add adverts to any RSS feed inside the feed, so why not use them - or the new Google RSS adverts?

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

If by "soon" you mean "never", yes.

[andrewducker]

Aaaah - that's not what I picked up from:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/lj_dev/681766.html
where various people, including the developer working on it, seemed to indicate that it was likely.

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

Hmn. What's the feed url - www.livejournal.com/users/name/rss/feed.xml?

Yes, reading man pages and/or faqs are for wimps <_<.

[andrewducker]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/andrewducker/data/rss