Re: [syndication][RSS-DEV] How should a feed tell people it's gone?

[Morbus Iff <morbus@disobey.com>]

>>>I've been noticing more than a few feeds have gone offline lately.  A
>>>wondering, however, is what thoughts have been given toward aiding the fe
>>
>>What's wrong with HTTP 404?
>
>Nothing, if the feed reader application notifies the person using it.
>But most readers don't ever tell the user about the error.

I'll have to admit that AmphetaDesk is one of these applications - if a 
feed 404s, times out, or otherwise doesn't parse correctly, then a note is 
made in the logfile, and the feed isn't displayed in the aggregator.

The easiest "user based" notification is to just stick a single rss:item 
into the dead feed stating that fact, and let the user remove it from their 
client however they know how.

That, of course, assumes a lot, namely that the server is still up,
that the user gives half a crap about linkrot, and yadda yadda yadda.

There's not going to be any single magic solution to this - any rss:expired 
tag would only be half-supported by clients, and even less supported by 
content producers.

I'd much rather see a multiple approach:

 - any non 2xx based error is logged and remembered. after X, remove feed.
 - any non changing feed after Y weeks is removed.
 - any rss:expired (or whatever) is immediately removed.


--
Morbus Iff ( softcore vulcan pr0n rulezzzzz )
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