RE: [syndication] The RSShovah Witnesses...

["Jeff Barr" <jeff@vertexdev.com>]

Morbus says,

> In a nutshell, someone mentioned creating a task force that would:
> 
>  - knock on people's door, educating about the RSS format,
>    showing tools to produce RSS, and helping to add some
>    mention of the RSS feed into the site.

That was me.

> I'd like to add on this second task force / ideal:

>  - have a group of people who just randomly sit together
>    and wait anxiously for requests for RSS feeds. these
>    people would scrape content and host the feeds themselves.

Oh yes, that would be really cool. I could keep a small army
busy with the lists that I already have. Perhaps Mike and Pino
at NewsIsFree would be interested in helping with this.

Clearly we have to coordinate these two efforts. We need a list
of sites, and then some state indicators:

(1) New
(2) Need to be approached
(3) Approached
(4) Awaiting reply
(5) Replied yes and feed exists
(6) Replied yes and feed will soon exist
(7) Replied no
(8) Native feed in hand
(9) Scraped feed in hand

Add a few more fields for dates and contact info and for some notes.

We could keep this list in XML form (under CVS control) on a server 
somewhere, and format it with XSL to produce a "status report". 

I am bringing a new server online next week and I could host this.
We need some volunteers for door-knockers and for scrapers.

Jeff;

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Morbus Iff [mailto:morbus@disobey.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 4:46 PM
> To: syndication@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [syndication] The RSShovah Witnesses...
> 
> 
> Welp, I don't remember who said it and after some quick 
> searching through the archives, I couldn't find the message. 
> Nor do I have time, so you'll have to excuse this 
> pseudo-not-really-RTFM.
> 
> In a nutshell, someone mentioned creating a task force that would:
> 
>  - knock on people's door, educating about the RSS format,
>    showing tools to produce RSS, and helping to add some
>    mention of the RSS feed into the site.
> 
> I'd like to add on this second task force / ideal:
> 
>  - have a group of people who just randomly sit together
>    and wait anxiously for requests for RSS feeds. these
>    people would scrape content and host the feeds themselves.
> 
> This came due to AmphetaDesk's TV appearance last night - 
> suddenly, I'm being inundated with people requesting Nascar 
> feeds (of which the closest I could find were bulletin boards 
> from Network54), FoxNews feed (I could only find FoxSports 
> feeds from NewsIsFree.com, even though Google.com suggests 
> that NiF did have FoxNews at one point), and so forth.
> 
> Now, I know that Radio Userland has a scraper plugin of sorts 
> [0], but that's Radio Userland only, and requires some 
> intelligence (and we all know that Nascar fans have... 
> well... ). I dare say it'd be hard for someone to create a 
> wizard that Nascar fans or Teletubby collectors [2] could use 
> to automake RSS feeds from scraped rules (anyone wanna try? 
> count me in)...
> 
> Don't tell Aaron, but after doing some searching and coming 
> up empty handed, I ofthandedly suggested they visit his site 
> [1] and take up his small offer of creating feeds to custom 
> order (cackle, cackle).
> 
> I don't think this is good enough though - there should be a 
> group of people who find joy in scraping other people's sites 
> and hosting resultant feeds. And of course, giving the info 
> back to the list and readers.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> [0] Dammit! Can't find it. Dave?
> [1] http://blogspace.com/rss/feeds/
> [2] Hey, I'm not dissing the teletubbies [3]. I think they're rather
>     curious - and it doesn't help that one of my zines, Devil Shat,
>     scooped them before they came to America [4].
> [3] I am, however, dissing Nascar fans.
> [4] http://disobey.com/devilshat/ds970911.htm
>     Second article. And don't make fun of the design. Remember,
>     this was 1997, when grey on black was tres cool.
> 
> -- 
>       ICQ: 2927491      /      AOL: akaMorbus
>    Yahoo: morbus_iff    /  Jabber: morbus@jabber.org
>    morbus@disobey.com   /   http://www.disobey.com/
> 
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