Making RSS/Atom feeds friendly to new users is key for its adoption, and for the open web. XSLT is the best way to do that.

I made a website to promote doing using XSLT for RSS/Atom feeds. Look at the before/after screenshots: which one will scare off a non-techie user?

https://www.rss.style/

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shadowgovt 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

RSS and Atom feeds are at this point a solution looking for a problem.

I use RSS all the time... To keep up-to-date on podcasts. But for keeping up to date on news, people use social media. RSS isn't the missing piece of the puzzle for changing that, an app on top of RSS is. And in the absence of Reader, nothing has shown up to fill that role that can compete with just trading gossip on Facebook.

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basscomm 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> But for keeping up to date on news, people use social media. RSS isn't the missing piece of the puzzle for changing that, an app on top of RSS is. And in the absence of Reader, nothing has shown up to fill that role that can compete with just trading gossip on Facebook.

I guess if you don't use social media or facebook you're out of luck?

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shadowgovt 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't see why. You can always subscribe to a newspaper. Or just use RSS and a subscription tool since it didn't just go away.

What I'm saying, though, is if you don't use social media at this point you're already an outlier (I am, it should be noted, using the term broadly: you are using social media. Right now. Hacker News is in the same category as Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, et. al. in this context: it's a place you go to get information instead of using a collection of RSS feeds, and I think the reason people do this instead of that may be instructive as to the ultimate fate of RSS for that use-case).

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basscomm 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> You can always subscribe to a newspaper.

The circulation for my local newspaper is so small that they now get printed at a press a hundred miles away and are shipped in every morning to the handful of subscribers who are left. I don't even know the last time I saw a physical newspaper in person.

> Hacker News... it's a place you go to get information instead of using a collection of RSS feeds

No, it's a place I go to _in addition_ to RSS feeds. An anonymous news aggregator with web forum attached isn't really social media. Maybe some people hang out here to socialize, but that's not a use case for me

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shadowgovt 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The relevant use case is you come here to see links people share and comment on them. That's sufficiently "social" in this context.

Contrasting the other use case you dabble in (that makes you an outlier) of pulling content from specific sources (I'm going to assume generating original content, not themselves link aggregators, otherwise this topic is moot) via RSS. Most people see that as redundant if they have access to something like HN, or Fark, or Reddit, or Facebook. RSS readers alone, in general, don't let you share your thoughts with other people reading the article, so it's not as popular a tool.

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basscomm an hour ago | parent [-]

> The relevant use case is you come here to see links people share and comment on them. That's sufficiently "social" in this context.

Just having users submit links that other users can comment on doesn't make it social media. I can't follow particular users or topics, I can't leave myself a note about some user that I've had a positive or negative experience with, I can't ignore someone who I don't want to read, etc. Heck, usernames are so de-emphasized on this site that I almost always forget that they're there.

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shadowgovt 39 minutes ago | parent [-]

A rose by any other name. If you'd prefer I'd have said

"But for keeping up to date on news, people use link aggregation boards where other users post links to stuff on the web and then talk to each other about them. RSS isn't the missing piece of the puzzle for changing that, an app on top of RSS is. And in the absence of Reader, nothing has shown up to fill that role that can compete with just trading gossip on Hacker News."

... that would be the same point. RSS, by itself, is a protocol for finding out some site created new content and is just not particularly compelling by itself for the average user when they can use "link aggregation boards where other users post links to stuff on the web and then talk to each othe about them" instead.

	▲	righthand 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Do you work for one of the companies involved deprecating Xslt?

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righthand 6 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> since it didn't just go away.

But do you see how removing a feature from a major browser makes it seem like RSS did just go away and how RSS will eventually go away?

What a terrible disingenuous argument. Anyone not in line with big tech deserves to be pushed aside eh?

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cpill 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

yes, but why??? Your on the website and you have a link to the syndicated feed, for the website your on, and you want to make they feed look good in the browser... so they can click the link to the website _you are already on_??? The argument you should be looking at the feed XML in the browser instead of the website is bonkers. They are not meant to replace the website coz if they were why have the website?!

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Fileformat an hour ago | parent | next [-]

But you are tech-savvy and know about RSS & feed readers and such like!

Think about it from a non-technical user's perspective: they click on a RSS link and get a wall of XML text. What are they going to do? Back button and move on. How are they ever going to get introduced to RSS and feed readers and such like?

I think a lot of feeds never get hit by a browser because there isn't a hyperlink to them. For example: HN has feeds, but no link in the HTML body, so I'm pretty confident they don't get browser hits. And no one who doesn't already know about feeds will ever use them.

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kstrauser an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I just checked and I’ve had 3 hits for my blog’s RSS feed from a legit-looking browser user agent string this year. Almost literally no one reads my site via RSS in the browser. Quite a few people fetch the feed from separate clients.

I wouldn’t spend 5 minutes making that feed look pretty for browser users because no one will ever see it. I don’t know who these mythical visitors are who 1) know what RSS is and 2) want to look at it in Chrome or Safari or Firefox.

	▲	Fileformat an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You are absolutely right!!! But... What about people who don't "1) Know what RSS is"??? And what if you could make it friendly for them in 4 minutes? You could by dropping in a XSLT file and adding a single line to the XML file. I bet you could do it in 3 minutes.