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To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers

First of all: welcome. Now, as you all might know, this blog site, http://weblogs.asp.net, has a grouped RSS feed (a couple actually), which is called the 'main feed'. If you place your post in a category which is in the default list of this site, your post will automatically end up on the main feed. This is a nice feature, but as it is used now it kills the site.

At the moment, the feed is flooded with completely useless posts: posts which link to articles from 2 years ago, copied texts from manuals, very poor code copied from other websites etc. etc. More and more people are giving up on this main feed because of this. While what you post on your blog is your business, you have to realize that by placing the post on the main feed, you also affect others on this site. For example, I don't want people to unsubscribe from the main feed and I bet a lot of others here think the same.

So, dear new blogger at weblogs.asp.net, do yourself and us a big favor: write new content. We all know about a couple of search engines, and we all know how to lookup things in MSDN. We don't need random posts without any red line to point us to these articles. Instead, what we don't know (yet) is what your opinion is about topics related to .NET programming, what your experiences are with .NET programming, what your ideas are about how things could get better. Those articles are interesting to read and will attract new readers and existing subscribers to come back.

History learns that this flood of useless posts is temporary, but what's sad is that often people who unsubscribe to a feed don't come back.

Published Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:13 AM by FransBouma

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Comments

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:22 AM

Frans, I couldn't agree more with you there. It's simply ridiculous to see people make a one liner post linked to an external resource about some article they happened to have read, found cool and decide to flood the main feed :|

Thanks for bringing that up. Hopefully, something can be done about this.

Have a good day,

Alessandro

alessandro

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:27 AM

I like(d) the feed a lot. The stuff which normally is posted to it learn me new stuff, give me ideas or give me insights on what other people think about development etc. But let's be fair, I'm not 10 years old, I can find stuff on codeproject, google, codeplex etc myself. Actually my nephews which are 10, can do that also.

Post stuff which adds value, but don't spam us with stuff we already read a year ago and making for each link you found a new post.. It's not a contest who can post the most!

JV

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:45 AM

Frans, i totally agree with you. Well, i dont blog on weblogs.asp.net i'm only a reader. Since the weblog is open for everyone, the quality of the articles change for the worse. I noticed that the double posts are also increased. May some people to remember: less is somtime more.

Servus,

Klaus

klaus_b

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:46 AM

yes indeed an important issue. I personally am thinking if I should continue with the feed as the number of useful stuff has just reduced so low that its difficult to find a good post to read.

vikram

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:59 AM

Is the asp.net weblogs still invitation only? or can any registered user create a blog now?

im assuming its the former!

Guy Harwood

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 6:01 AM

+1000 my flood is exploding!

I think we need at least a couple of feed, the first is the main feed (the oldest), the others is the one with new bloggers.

I waited for a minute before asking to "open" my blog in weblogs.asp.net but thinking at the problem you mentioned I gave up !

Best regards !

Gianluca

gianluca gravina

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 6:35 AM

+1

andrex

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 6:45 AM

Totally agree..

I am thinking about creating some kind of feed wrapper, which can filter on some field values in the RSS stream.

You will see all new postings, except for the people/keywords you 'Junk' tagged..

Then that filtered RSS url can be used in your RSS reader or bloglines account.

Sounds simple.. Maybe bloglines is interested in building it into their rss reader..

Regards hj meulekamp

HJ Meulekamp

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 7:22 AM

Hi Frans, I am a long time asp.net and msdn mainfeed subscriber and so totally understand and am not surprised someone has spoken on the matter. Although I'm not sure I agree totally with your suggestions or Gianluca's suggestion of a 2 tier system since I am one of those new bloggers (although I am yet to make a start). The problem I see is not only are there asp.net bloggers with varying skills and interests but the mainfeed readers also have different skill/experience/interest levels and I am sure even someone like yourself who is particularly knowledgeable is not so in all areas. So while I find your blogs very interesting and sometimes i admit over my head, as a LLBLGen customer I find many of your blogs have value for me, i also find it interesting even to read about new .net devs and the experiences they have both in asp.net and that related to it eg. Freelancing/ISV's and it is why I remain subscribed to the mainfeed, as while it is possible to name the main blogs I tend to read mostly, i would not want to miss anything interesting to me from someone else. My suggestion is perhaps as well as having tags per blog entry perhaps a feature is needed where tags can be applied to the bloggers profile by the blogger. In this way we could subscribe to a sort of customised mainfeed? mainfeed.aspx?tags=english,isv,advanced,beginner,orm  This would mean for me non-english posts would not be in my feed and for you anyone who is a beginner and likely to tell you what you already know can be left off, but you still get to read the slightly "off .net topic posts" from the people you do read, like this blog entry from yourself as an example.  I appreciate this would be a long term solution to the problem since the CS guys would need to add this feature, but I thought I would suggest it anyway. In the mean time I hope you stay subscribed to the mainfeed so you can read my great contributions once i have decided on my own editorial policy :)

Daren

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 7:24 AM

Well i have to disagree with you all! I never was the fan and neither i will be to the asp.net official blog (lots of blogs out there are more helpful). I think what cares more from the developer perspective are the posts which help him/her in his/her real time problem. Maybe new bloggers are not experienced like you guys but at least they are trying to help the community and THAT'S should be taking into considerations instead of nagging about the CRAP issues.

Regards

Haissam Abdul Malak

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 7:38 AM

Haissam: I'm not talking about posts on a blog, as I said: everyone should post what s/he feels should be posted. It's just that not every post should be on the main feed. Blogs have individual RSS feeds, if you feel a post doesn't belong on the main feed, don't post it on the main feed.

The thing is also that the discussion about the main feed has been held a couple of times in the past as well, and never it was really resulting in anything useful.

FransBouma

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 8:05 AM

Hear hear!

Dion

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:18 AM

I thought the community was too focused on software engineering concepts like unit testing and obscure language features and not enough on actual web development. Building developer communities is important and there is a lot of competition. For example, I network with the larger IT community on ITtoolbox.

rrobbins

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:30 AM

Call a spade a spade.  There's one new blogger that's trashing the feed.  He was mentioned in the "Poor Code" feed.  If he goes, things will get better.

Matt

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:35 AM

Hi Guys,

I'm working on feed options but in the maen time here is a feed scheme that may be of interest.

These 2 feeds are sll the "old" asp.net bloggers

• Microsoft Employee Bloggers: weblogs.asp.net/MainFeed.aspx

• Orrigional Bloggers: weblogs.asp.net/MainFeed.aspx

JoeStagner

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:51 AM

Maybe something simple like exclude all the new people from the main feed until they earn their stripes?

Phil.

Plip

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:42 AM

Hi Frans,

Im glad to see someone besides myself is trying to point this out and do something about it. I really liked reading all of the blogs that used to come through from the asp.net weblogs, but now, I skim through most of them. Anyway, keep up the good work!

nick-w

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 11:01 AM

I'm so nervous posting at asp.net that my blog is completely empty.  :D  I'll post something when I think it may be unique.

kcornwell

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 11:10 AM

kCornwell: hehe :) It's not that you shouldn't post whatever pops up in your mind, please do so, but the main issue is the main feed which gets flooded.

I'm glad Joe looks into it and I'm looking forward to the new feeds ;).

FransBouma

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 11:50 AM

Thanks you Frans,

Thanks to the asp.net team for giving us an opportunity to show our ideas. I hope that my posts be in the truth way ;)

Best regarlds,

Eugenio

Eugenio Estrada

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 1:24 PM

Why did you make the official asp.net blog as public if you are going to seperate between old bloggers and new bloggers? It is better to leave it private until someone earns his/her MVP or joins Microsoft...

Haissam Abdul Malak

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 1:27 PM

I totally agree. This is getting really annoying reading through multitudes of learn this and learn that links.

I'm a new blogger here also. I purposefully didn't write an initial biography or "thanks to Joe" post, because there already was a thanks post, then another, then another, etc. Also, why would anyone care about me being a new blogger anyways?

Hopefully people will start thinking twice before posting crap to everyone.

narshe

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Tuesday, January 29, 2008 1:48 PM

Right on!!! I just hope they stop the useless posts...

Chris

# re: To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers@ Wednesday, January 30, 2008 2:04 PM

Hi guys,

I'm working on a rich rss and home page solutuion and I hope you will keep your eyes on my blog as I will be asking for your input soon.

In the mean time - NEW BLOGGERS should read this post www.joeon.net/.../Weblogsaspnet---New-Blogger-Feed-Growth.aspx and use the info to keep non-technical posts OUT of the agrigate feed.

In the interest of overall satisfaction, I will remove Bloggers who post non technical posts to the main feed from the agrigate feeds.

JoeStagner