RSS – I just can’t cope any more

I’m currently in need of a stiff drink – I just finished pruning back my RSS feeds. I had 250 on the last backup list I did, and now I’m working during the week, I just don’t have time to keep up with them all. I’m now down to 150 feeds. I want the list to be even smaller, but I just can’t decide what stays and what goes out of the remainder. Unfortunately, most of the remainder are the high-volume ones as well :S

Scobel has gone. I gave him the benefit of the doubt for a while, but he’s just not floating my boat. I honestly did try, but he’s just not my cup of tea. Also, if I find myself going into withdrawal and changing my mind (unlikely, but I’m female, and it’s been known to happen) I know where to find him. The blogosphere ain’t so big you can loose someone like that, no matter how hard you might try.

Most of the other feeds that have been sent to the great Aggregator in the Sky are web2.0/tech ones like the assorted ZDNet blogs and things I subscribed to back when I was in deep research mode. I’m still gonna be keeping a pinky on the pulse, but at one remove. If the old favourites such as Danah, Molly, Ross, and Liz are talking about it, I know from old I’m gonna be interested in it. Stowe has also managed to wangle his way back into my heart. His eternal tracking of his Technorati ranking is starting to bug me, but he does have the decency to flag those posts with consistent naming so you get some warning and can just skip over them. In this case, the blogging-good pretty much outweighs the bad. He can stay.

So this cull might leave me that little bit further behind the curve than before, but is it really that important if I’m a day/week late with the gossip? If it’s important enough to impact on me, I am sure I will hear of it before it is too late.

I’d like to say I was being original, but it turns out I’m not. Mildly ironically, I check my RSS tonight, and find that Josh has already bitten the bullet.

If you’re curious as to how I’ve chosen who stays and who goes, it’s easy – if I like their style, they stay. Writing should grab your attention. The words you read on a page or screen should let you see the personality of the author. You should enjoy reading them. Even more importantly, perhaps, they should challenge you and make you think. I couldn’t list what makes good writing, but I do know it when I see it. *1* That’s the yard stick I used during the surgery, so you can be guaranteed if it’s in my OPML file or on the Bloglines page, then I genuinely enjoy reading it. *2* No more sheep-tendencies for Cas. Well, I can try 😉 Sorry if I’ve zapped you from the list, but there are only so many hours in the day. If you think I should be reading your stuff then plead your case, and I’ll give you a second chance. Or if you think of anything I might enjoy reading do let me know. I’m always up to trying new things.

I really hope I haven’t offended anyone – trust me, it’s as hard for me as it is for you. It shouldn’t be this hard to delete a feed from Vienna, but it is. I feel disloyal and nasty when I remove my subscription. I am so pathetic.

Not sure why I felt I had to share this with you, but *shrug* there you go. Oh, and this isn’t a whole anti-A-List rant or reaction or anything. It is a genuine attempt to make surfing the Internet fun again.

Endnotes:
*1* Good being, of course, a subjective thing. Let’s not get back to the whole Clive Cussler debate.
*2* The exceptions to this are news sites such as BBC, NYT, and to a degree tech/gadget/funny sites like Gizmodo and BoingBoing. At the same time, I am seriously considering removing Gizmodo from the list as well. They still supply gems, but the dross is rapidly starting to drown them out. Oh, and the sites of friends. They’re exempt too. If I’ve met you in RL/have formed a genuine online relationship with you, then you’re safe. More or less :devil_tb:

2 thoughts on “RSS – I just can’t cope any more

  1. Hey Cas,

    I see you caved under the pressure, too. And that’s okay, because you’re in good company. 😉 When you said it was all an attempt to make surfing the internet fun again, well.. you nailed it. I’d turned a pleasure thing into a work thing, and that’s no good.

    Thanks for keeping me in your list. If it’s any consolation, you’re still in mine as well. 🙂

  2. Yay! Always reassuring to know people haven’t stopped reading me. I had a mini-heart attack the other morning – the feedburner counter was proudly proclaiming to everyone that I had no, that is ZERO, subscribers. I’m starting to hate that bloody chicklet.

    But I am so glad I did cull the feeds. Normally, I have near 200 new items to read on a weekend morning (weekday evenings when I check for the first time it used to be upwards of 500). This morning, I had 88.

    Bliss. Though now I have no excuse not to clean the flat before Brother Dearest and his Better Half come down for the weekend. Sigh. Every cloud has a black lining.

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