Feature: Subscribing to Newsletter

cognifloyd · Post by **cognifloyd** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 5:56 pm

As the Newsletter app follows the Blog approach, I expect to be able to subscribe to feeds of content.

Some people like email (mentioned in another thread), but I prefer RSS or Atom.

Please let people subscribe to All articles from a ward or stake, or to specific categories (in my YSA ward, that might include: FHE, Relief Society, and Elders).

Thanks!
Jacob Floyd

mohhess · Post by **mohhess** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 8:19 am

I second that. It would be great to have RSS and Email, most people would prefer to have it show up in their RSS reader or email rather than visiting the page every-time.

marmat · Post by **marmat** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 9:02 am

+1 for these - but I think the email function is top on my list as more people understand how to use it:

Related thread - https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... ail-Notice

johnshaw · Post by **johnshaw** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 9:03 am

I hope we could not only Subscribe to them, but also, Share like we do on lds.org

cognifloyd · Post by **cognifloyd** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 10:58 am

Duplicate: https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... -RSS-feeds

sharpep · Post by **sharpep** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 12:58 pm

As Stake Exec Sec, I am interested in communicating the information as widely as possible and RSS & being able to publish to other blogs, e.g. a Facebook group will help achieve that.

Post by **kennethjorgensen** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 1:19 am

I agree with this request.

A couple of considerations though:

Since the information within each "blog" could be personal to the unit and the people it might be good to separate what would be public and what would be private. I would imagine the title (and even a short description, new field?) would be public and included in the RSS link whereas the main description would be more private and not included in the RSS file but only available if you click on the link and access the site (where you have to be logged in).

Another thing that would be really useful is the ability to make an entry open to view by the rest of the stake. This is particularly useful for places where some smaller units often share activities and events etc.

johnshaw · Post by **johnshaw** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:46 am

a YSA ward for example, but we could create categories at the stake level and give the YSA the ability to submit a news item?

AileneRHerrick · Post by **AileneRHerrick** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 2:40 pm

kennethjorgensen wrote:Since the information within each "blog" could be personal to the unit and the people it might be good to separate what would be public and what would be private. I would imagine the title (and even a short description, new field?) would be public and included in the RSS link whereas the main description would be more private and not included in the RSS file but only available if you click on the link and access the site (where you have to be logged in).

Right. Currently most RSS readers only allow for subscriptions to public blogs. There isn't a way to add a private feed to an RSS reader. For privacy reasons, the news should be private, and not published to an RSS or other feed. There isn't going to be any ward news that anyone outside of the ward (i.e., everyone on the internet) needs to know.

cognifloyd · Post by **cognifloyd** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:13 am

AileneRHerrick wrote:Right. Currently most RSS readers only allow for subscriptions to public blogs. There isn't a way to add a private feed to an RSS reader.

I disagree. Username/password or personal security token or (select your favorite method of the many available) allow you to subscribe to private feeds in any RSS reader. the username/password can be embedded in the url in the form username:password@www.lds.org/beta-newsletter/rss or something like that. Security tokens can be included in the url in the form: http://www.lds.org/beta-newsletter/rss; ... 486akjsdfk or http://www.lds.org/beta-newsletter/rss/ ... 486akjsdfk or http://www.lds.org/beta-newsletter/rss? ... 486akjsdfk or any number of other methods.

For precedent, consider the calendar which creates an iCal subscription that is unique per user. There's a note on the sync page that explains that people should not share this link. If things are not "public" as you say, then implement the RSS as a per user feed, or with a user-specific security token without which the feed will not load. People need to receive the newsletter in the way they are used to. Forcing them to go somewhere else simply because of a bureaucratic fear based on an inaccurate understanding of the available technology is pointless and will make it exponentially more difficult for me to teach the people in my YSA stake about this tool, AND actually use it. Don't make my calling harder, I beg of you. Please implement RSS or ATOM feeds.