Flashes of Panic

I added web feeds to the Wish List this afternoon, which was a relatively simple operation thanks to previous experience and the simple tutorial which led me through my first feeds.

(Brief digression: Why not an Atom feed? Because all the pages which proposed to show me how started with something like, “First, look at the specification…” and I’m not at all interested in reading the spec: I just want to write a feed template. Danny Sullivan’s article just shows you how, and it just works.)

My learning step, this time, was adding the feed auto-discovery links to the heads of each page. I figure that many of the people using this are pretty low on the geek scale, and are most likely to use feeds if they’re spoon-fed via Safari or Firefox. So I made sure the code was there to pop up the relevant feed links.

I have code in the existing list display pages to control what gets shown to the owner of the list. If you’re looking at your own list (that is, you’re logged in, and looking at the list associated with the user you’re logged in as,) you don’t see status notes other people have left about items on your list, nor do you see items other people have put on your list. It’s part of the original idea behind this: it’s about preserving surprises if you want to, in a way most web-based wish lists don’t.

For various reasons not entirely unrelated to this post, I can’t require logins for the feeds. Since I can’t tell who is requesting the feed for a list, I can’t present the list differently for owners and non-owners. In other words, if you check the feed for your own list, it’s entirely likely to be a spoiler.

I decided this was a necessary risk. The value of having web feeds lies in providing current information, and gutting the feed content would be counterproductive. Instead, I’ve just not included the feed link or auto-discovery code for the owner of a list. They could still figure out the feed URL and subscribe, but it’s not happening by accident. And in my rambling introduction to the feature on the front page, I’ve included the caution: spoilers ahead.

Now Playing: Dear John from Jacksonville City Nights by Ryan Adams & The Cardinals