I came across two interesting posts on full-text website feeds. Those who are not familiar with RSS and ATOM feeds generally should consult my introduction article. For those of you who have some familiarity with feeds, note that by “full-text” I mean feeds that provide the entire content of an article or post instead of a snippet. However – many feed readers are able to turn snippet feeds into full-text feeds, so the distinction is sometimes moot for practical purposes.
I will begin by throwing my cards on the table: I like full-text feeds. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I like reading articles with a nice interface, which I have in my current primary feed reader and in some read-it-later tools that I have used. Secondly, many websites have too much going on and while my primary web browser, Firefox, has an excellent readability mode, being able to read full-text articles in my feed reader or read-it-later tool is usually more convenient.
A blogger named Juha-Matti Santana approached the case for full-text feeds from a different angle: being “offline-friendly”:
An excerpt-only feed is unreadable when there is no Internet access. I use an RSS reader (lire) that downloads the posts for offline read. So when I travel, I can read all my favourite blogs if they offer the full post.
I had not thought of this take because I generally do my feed reading at home – where I have internet. For whatever it is worth, I would recommend bringing an e-reader or some downloaded material (including articles one may download ahead of time) in lieu of relying on a feed reader where there will be no internet access. But different people have different needs, and a good webmaster should consider how to make reading more convenient for his or her audience.
(While I do not use an e-ink device for feeds since my ideal phone has not yet hit the stage, I suspect full-text feeds are much better for reading on e-ink displays than having to open every link in a web browser.)
While I am strongly in favor of offering full-text feeds, I was aware of two cases against them. Firstly, many sites want to drive visitor traffic to the site itself. There may be many reasons for this from ads and analytics to wanting visitors to see writing and media as it is presented by the author. Secondly, some sites opt to offer excerpts because content scrapers, often nefarious, can feast on full text feeds. Neither of these issues weighed heavily on my own decision making – my focus is on writing more than presentation, and while I do not like the idea of my writing being stolen, I doubt that whether I offer full-text feeds is decisive . I came across an interesting argument that I had not given much thought to in a blog post by Chris McLeod titled Visiting Websites on his personal site. He explored the case for visiting sites instead of reading everything in a feed reader from the perspective of the reader. I quote the pertinent part of his blog post:
Regardless of why you had to visit, you did, and it meant you’d see all the (frequent) redesigns, the new widgets and experiments, the new links in the sidebar you could explore after your visit was concluded … I want to change this behaviour of only viewing sites through the lens of a feed reader (or similar). I want to visit sites more routinely when they are updated.
The key line here is “only viewing sites through the lens of a feed reader.” This line caught my attention since I have explicitly made the case for using feed readers instead of viewing the internet through the lens of algorithmic social media or related services such as Google or Apple News. While I stand by this take, he is correct that using a feed reader with a curated collection of feeds is a lens in and of itself. Reading everything inside the sanitized interface of a feed reader or read-it-later tool has the effect of flattening the web – making articles from one site look the same as articles from another. Mr. McLeod was inspired by several recent posts to look into ways to change his reading habits, to follow links from his feed reader to the original websites instead of reading the websites in his feed reader. This is not an issue of feeds vs no feeds, but instead of how to read feed articles. (He noted that he was considering Fraidy Cat, a free and open source browser feed reader that has no in-reader reading option.)
I tend to prefer reading articles in my feed reader, a read-it-later tool, or my browser’s reading mode. But note that I said tend to and not always. While most sites may be best read with a flat, clean, reading-focused interface, it is not the case for all sites. For example, I always prefer reading Sakuga Blog’s long anime studies on the original website instead of in my feed reader. Some sites with clean, aesthetic (or otherwise fun) designs give me an incentive to navigate from my feed reader to the site itself to see what else is new. But the majority of sites in my feed reader are either better to read in stripped down form (the New York Post Metro section feed is a good example from my collection) or otherwise do not offer any additional value to me to make me navigate away from my more minimal set-up (my multiple Substack feeds are good examples here). As of this writing, I am using Miniflux (in browser on my computer and as a PWA on my phone) to handle my feeds. Miniflux is good at parsing articles in app with its own user interface, but it is also very easy to navigate to the original site when necessary or when I prefer the original site’s aesthetics to the more austere Miniflux interface (I improved on the default Miniflux UI by applying the Miniflux Nord Theme).
Using a feed reader is an active way of reading (and viewing) things on the internet. Any reader of a good feed reader should consider the best way to read or otherwise engage with different sites in his or her feed collection. In my first lengthy feed discourse, I opined that “RSS feed readers and bookmarking applications are ways for users to be their own curators, to actively choose their own sources and authors…” There, I was distinguishing being a passive consumer of information or content from algorithmic sources from taking the time to choose your own sources for your digital home. Managing a feed collection and exercising discretion on what to read and what to pass on entails higher friction than simply fielding links and media thrown at you by a big tech company, but this friction is a good thing. I focused on that inherent friction in later articles on combining feed readers with read-it-later tools (as a means of following leads from feed items), organizing feeds (as a means of efficiently managing a feed collection), and the purpose of organizing feeds (returning to the idea of controlling one’s digital home). But I neglected to consider the friction of choosing whether to read a feed item in a feed reader or other stripped down interface (where applicable, of course – some feed readers only provide links) or visiting the original source. Having considered the matter – I think it is a good thing for people who tend to prefer stripped down reading environments to consider not only each site they subscribe to but also whether some sites are better visited directly than read through the lens of a readability layer. Conversely, some people who opt for a links-only feed reader with no read-it-later tool may benefit from considering whether some of their feed items would be better enjoyed without the bloat and clutter that plagues the modern web.
I can also approach feeds from the perspective of a webmaster. To that effect, I have always offered full-text feeds here at The New Leaf Journal. Because I like having the choice of how to read sites, I offer the same choice to our readers. In the end, I am more opinionated about the content of my writing than how people choose to read it (so long as people or bots do not steal it, of course). For those who do not use feed readers or read-it-later tools (I will venture this describes the majority of our readers, notwithstanding my best efforts), I have worked on making The New Leaf Journal a pleasant place to stop and enjoy some writing – although I fully concede that it is not, at the moment, the most visually striking of websites. I like to think that it is cozy enough that some feed-first readers may opt to venture out from their feed readers and stop by for a visit once-in-a-while.
If a webmaster who does not have a technical reason (e.g., resource usage, revenue, or very particular anti-scraping concerns) for avoiding full-text feeds but who nevertheless wants people to visit his or her website came to me for advice, I would suggest to the webmaster that he or she offers full text feeds but also challenge him or herself to design a website that is appealing enough to make veteran feed reader users want to visit the website proper. I can think of a few ways one could accomplish this:
- Ensure that the website proper is lightweight (free of ads, third-party trackers, and annoyances) and visually interesting. (Which points of this advice are practicable depend on the particulars of the website in question.)
- Offer something extra for people who visit the website instead of reading everything in a feed.
- Remember that the vast majority of visitors – even to a site that is more likely to have feed-savvy readers – will likely visit the site directly. If the goal is to convince some of those feed-savvy readers to take the time to visit, consider what would make them interested in doing so. Perhaps use an article that will appear in their feeds to invite feedback.
At the moment, visitors to The New Leaf Journal receive one fun perk that I now do not include in feeds: Related posts beneath our articles. As I explained recently, I now personally curate related posts for all of our articles, meaning that if you enjoy reading an article on our site, you can see what else I think you may enjoy (or, in some cases, what I choose to amuse myself (find the joke related post)). I used to include related posts in feeds, but it created a display problem in a feed aggregator set-up we had running before, so I removed them. Now, I think it is a nice website-only addition, recognizing that people who choose to read in a stripped down user interface may prefer to just have the article text and the basic niceties like categories and tags.
If you are interested in feeds and, like me, generally prefer full text feeds but sometimes like to visit the websites directly, I recommend looking at Miniflux as a cross-platform option. I run my own Miniflux instance for cheap on Pikapods, but the developers of the free and open source app also offer a paid solution (also low cost) which doubles as a way to support the development. Minflux is also self-hostable for people who want to run their own. For those of you on Android (or a derivative thereof) who are in the (free) market for a local tool, I can also recommend Handy Reading – which has full text functionality, built-in read-it-later functionality, but which also integrates well with Android’s native link sharing functionality so that links can be opened in an external browser.
