RSS feed help

[FireDitto]

Hi!

Firstly, I apologies if this is in the wrong location. Not quite sure where I should put this thread.

From what I have gathered, if an individual board is not guest-friendly, then it does not feed through to the RSS, correct? I would like my RSS feed to pass through even on a guest denied board, following the Yay/Nay of the mod 'Exclude boards from RSS feeds', which I love.

Is anyone able to help me do this? Is it possible?

Thank you kindly.

[Kindred]

That contradicts the very basic concept of security and permissions in smf.

It can be done...  But it is a stupid idea, IMO... Not the least of the reasons why, because if a user sees the rss, he may want to view the actual post. Only to be told that he can't.  Just a bad UX.

[IchBin™]

Probably bad for SEO too since a bot can access RSS but not the actual post.

[FireDitto]

Ah, that would be the whole point?

"Look at these awesome topics. Wanna read em? Join on up!"

[IchBin™]

Yeah, and the reasons we pointed out for not doing was our point. Not to mention you could possibly run into privacy issues too. If people knowingly post something on your site with the knowledge that a guest can't read it, making their post public via RSS without their knowledge could get you in some trouble.

"Look at these awesome topics. Wanna read em? Join on up!"

Why join the site when I can just read the feed then? Saves me the trouble of having to register yet on another site.

[FireDitto]

I don't want the post to actually be public, I just want the topic title to be, regardless of guest/no guest settings.

[Kindred]

And my years of experience would seem to suggest that doing that actually drives people AWAY from your site.
Seriously, unless you have something utterly unique, they can always find the information somewhere else where they don't have to jump through your hoops. I will leave such a site, 100% of the time when that happens.

We say the same warning for people who use the "show post titles but require regs to read" mods.

In general, it's a bad idea.
If people want to participate in your site, they will join. If they can't actually see enough of your site to tell if they want to participate then why would they join?

[FireDitto]

*sigh* I really didn't post the request asking for people's opinions on why I should or should not do something; I posted it asking for help to do it because I want to run my site that way.

If you're not going to offer up help on how to achieve, please kindly withhold your comments.

[Kindred]

And yet, you asked here, asking for help in doing something that will require some custom coding...
so, sorry, but we are going to give you our opinions based on, in many case, vast experience, as to why what you are asking for would not be worth the effort.

[Ahadawan]

If I may say something, I believe that perhaps for the type of board FireDitto is running it could actually help her gain some members.

Role-players may sometimes be conscientious about their post since it's sort of a work of art and she might want to protect their threads from being viewed by anyone. But for another role-player considering to join the site it would perhaps seen as inactive if all boards were private and hence make them leave without joining.
I believe that those types of boards are actually quite unique and a role-player could look around and feel inclined to join if they see activity even though they cannot read the topics.

In most cases, of course, you are truly right and when you stumble upon a site with "register to see and/or read" that would make most people leave, so it's really a good advice in general. I would leave as well. But in this case with FireDitto's site in mind it might seem like a legitimate request.

Hope I'm not intruding, I have the greatest respect for your expert opinion but thought I should share my thought since I can see why she would like to hide the post but not the title in a RSS-feed.

Hope you're all having a great day/evening!

[FireDitto]

Thank you, Ahadawan, you summed that up perfectly.  That is exactly why I want to do this

[Kindred]

hmmm...   well, as a roleplayer myself for the past 35 years, I have to again disagree...

Anyway...   as far as I can tell, it's not a simple thing, since it not only bypasses all of SMF's standard permissions processes, but tries to do it externally.

[Ahadawan]

No problem, FireDitto I just thought I could add my two cents in when I saw the thread in recent, seeing as I could relate to your question.

And Kindred, that's quite a long time. Very cool! And we may have to agree to disagree then, which is probably for the best anyway since it would be truly a sad world if everyone always agreed on everything every time. Always nice to hear different opinions.

I should perhaps bow out now since I can't actually be of any coding help in the thread I'm still learning.

Good luck FireDitto! Hope you (and the great community) solve it.

And once again, Have a great day/evening! (depending on timezones et cetera)