Opt out of RSS

[andrewducker]

Title
Opt out of RSS

Short, concise description of the idea
An option to opt out of RSS/ATOM and any other syndication method that LJ chooses in the future

Full description of the ideaSome people aren't happy at the fact that sites like bloglines can duplicate their journal. They don't realise that this is an effect of having an RSS feed of it, and

Comments

[miome]

Folks should have control of where and how their content is displayed.

If someone chooses to screen-scrape, the user can make a copyright-based complaint against them. If, however, data is obtained via RSS feed, the person displaying the content that existence of RSS feed gave them implicit license to do so.

[troworld]

No. You can charge with copyright violation whether your IP is taken from your journal page, LJ's recent posts feed, or your own RSS feed. What you post is your intellectual property no matter how people get at it. RSS just makes it easier.

[gerg]

If someone chooses to screen-scrape, the user can make a copyright-based complaint against them.

Under what grounds? "Mommy, he's reading my public information and I don't like it because he's not using my style even though I posted this information publically!!"?

I'm honestly confused as to how you could possibly think that a copyright complaint could be filed on someone for merely reading what is already available for public consumption.

As far as the suggestion goes, if we want to give the tinfoil-hatters something to turn off RSS, that's fine with me, but the default should be on. We should also, IMO, write a FAQ about the fact that "Public" entries can be read by anyone by any method at any time even if the person does not have a LiveJournal account. I don't think a lot of the userbase understands what Public means, at least in the LJ context.

[decadence1]

Do that and every reader of lj_userdoc will cry. :-( gleffler, please don't make the readers cry. :-(

[rly]

Here's an even better solution than going friends only. If you don't like this core feature of LiveJournal that is highly unlikely to go away, don't use LiveJournal.

[andrewducker]

WTF?

If I think that LJ can be improved by giving people more control over the data then I should stop using it?

And since when is RSS (a relatively recent feature) _core_ to LJ?

[rly]

A feature that every user account has is a core feature.

[andrewducker]

A feature that is essential to people's day-to-day use is a core feature.

[ruakh]

Having an RSS feed implies that you're okay with people reproducing your content on other sites. If you're not okay with that - if you want people to have to visit your journal in order to see your content - then you should not have an RSS feed.

LJ should give users the option of opting out of RSS/Atom/etc., though I do think the default should be for them to be enabled.

[decadence1]

It's not 'reproduced'. At most it's 'cached'. As are, I believe, most user info pages etc., etc.

If someone wants a closed insular community let them close their corner of it by using the security settings. Don't force everyone into your (not 'your' ruakh, I just happen to be replying to you) POV. Or, a user can 'solve' the "probblem" by adopting another method for journalling such as teenopendiary.com or perhaps a paper-based solution in their bedroom. There are lots of options that don't (IMO as I explained above) intrinsically damage LiveJournal.

[ruakh]

It's not 'reproduced'. At most it's 'cached'. As are, I believe, most user info pages etc., etc.

I disagree. Some sites really present syndicated content in a way that makes it seem more like their content, which I would consider "reproduction" rather than "caching"; indeed, LJ used to do so, until that was changed so as to head off complaints. (LJ didn't do this intentionally, mind, and I'm sure other sites don't do it intentionally, either; but still, I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to want his/her journal accessible only via LiveJournal.com, in which case it is simply wrong and misleading for said someone to be publishing an RSS feed of his/her journal.)

And sorry, but I don't buy your argument that letting people turn off RSS feeds hurts LiveJournal.com. I might accept what you're saying if we're saying that RSS feeds are disabled by default, but if we're talking about RSS feeds being opt-out, then I think it would be worse for LiveJournal.com if a bunch of our users had to go yell at other sites not to syndicate

[decadence1]

It isn't a problem (and I don't just mean it isn't a problem for me, I believe it isn't a problem period). It'll lull people into a false sense of security, (after all they won't be able to edit settings for most communities they access) as well as (as mentioned above) destroy their ability to use the integrated Feedster searching.

All this could ever do is cause rampant hysteria and every paranoid user running around like Chicken Little yelling "Activate this console command everyone!! There's this thing called a feed! How can LiveJournal do this! Copyright violation". JUST LIKE what happens every single time someone mentions the latest-rss feeds in an official community. *Sigh*.

[cmshaw]

When you post something on the internet, you post it on the whole internet. There's no point to encouraging people to think otherwise.

Besides, there's another livejournal feature that easily serves your content outside of the lj site -- it's the embedded friends page. RSS is just another facet of the same basic "friends" principle that's the foundation of livejournal.

[timwi]

There seems to be a specific point of unclarity in this thread, and that is whether the site people are complaining about are reproducing the last few entries of a feed (in the way LJ does) or actually reproducing the complete journal in its entirety.

In the former case, if the users still object to that, tell them to post friends-only. In the latter case, tell them to file a copyright complaint. Either way, RSS feeds should stay.

[7rin]

RSS feeds should stay, but should be opt-outable.