Prematurely labelling RSS feeds as inactive

Internet

I love and recommend The Old Reader for anyone who wants to get started reading RSS feeds. But there’s one feature I think does more harm than good, at least in how its currently implemented.

Check out this on the landing page:

Inactive feeds

Would you consider any of these inactive, based on those reported timelines since their last post? I wouldn’t!

I’ve long reached for John Siracusa’s Hypercritical as an example. He writes a few posts a year, sometimes even fewer. But they’re always worth a read, and genuinely exciting to see when they pop up.

I tend to write every day, but that’s only one style. Some may even say it’s worth less, especially compared to someone who spends six months on a personal project and writes about it.

Please don’t let this be another hang up if you’ve considered writing but are worried about how often you could post. A well written post about a project every other year is already hugely valuable.

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Ruben Schade is a technical writer and infrastructure architect in Sydney, Australia who refers to himself in the third person. Hi!

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