Items automatically marked as read

[stefan]

Feedly seems to follow Google Reader's approach to automatically marking older feed items as "read" (Google used to do that if the item was older than 30 days). 

What is the exact logic Feedly uses to do that? Is it always a fixed period of time or it depends on the feed? In this case are there any restrictions on operations that are allowed/disallowed for those old items?

Also is there a way to determine in the returned JSON results if the item was marked as "read" by a user action or by the system (just because it is old)?

Stefan

[David Chatenay]

Hi Stefan,
Indeed, we tried to replicate the Google Reader behavior.
The simplest way to understand how it works is to think that there
is an automatic "mark all as read" marker set for every feed(*), 31
days before now.

(*) except if the user has marked the feed as read in the past 31 days

All feeds are treated the same.

This limit is used for the article read status. Articles past the 31
days limit will all be marked as read, whether the user actually read
them or not. Obviously, this is also used when we compute the unread
count: we stop counting articles past 31 days.

There are no real restrictions on articles past the 31 days limit:
you can still mark them as read, get the content, save or tag the
article etc.

Articles marked as read by the user will have the "global.read" tag.
If the user has marked the *feed* as read, there is no special tag.
But it is safe to assume that any read entry between 31 days and now
must have been done by a user action.
You can also use the /v3/markers/reads
(http://developer.feedly.com/v3/markers/#get-the-latest-read-operations-to-sync-local-cache)
if you want to get a precise list of feed markers and read articles
(warning: this list might be very large if you retrieve 31 days worth
of history).

Hope this helps.

--
David Chatenay
Feedly

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[stefan]

Thanks David,

What happens if you try to remove the "read" status from an old (> 31 days) item? Will that "stick" or will it eventually automatically go back to "read".

(Feedly's web based app allows you to mark it as "unread" but I am not sure if this is permanent)

I am wondering if client apps (like mine) have to explicitly prevent marking as "unread" items that are older then 31 days.

Stefan

[David Chatenay]

Hi Stefan,
If you try to unread an article (i.e. remove the "read" tag) more
than 31 days old, the article will stay as read: that's because it'll
still be past the 31 day limit.
Indeed, apps (including feedly) should hide the "keep unread" button
if the article is more than 31 days old: clicking on it won't work.
--
David Chatenay
Feedly

[stefan]

Thanks David, 

This is what I was expecting - thanks for confirming it.

I also want to thank you for your continued support to all 3rd party developers - your detailed answers and suggestions make working with Feedly a pleasure. I really appreciate it.

Stefan

[Kevin]

+1 - agree with the thank you!

The response time is awesome.

Kevin

[chez.pe...@gmail.com]

I hate that behaviour.
I'm looking for another Podcast/RSS reader, because of that behaviour.

I don't want your service mark my feed as read if they aren't, even if they are old. I like reading old feeds.
I don't get old feeds with your service.

I'm looking for another servie, I agree to pay for a service, if I can have very old feeds if they exist on the servers.

[Edwin Khodabakchian]

Sorry for the frustration.

The motivation for this is that having a limit in time allows us to compute unread counts in a reasonable amount of time. Not having a limit could result in feedly taking seconds to load which would be very painful.

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[David Chatenay]

  Hi,

  You can still read old feeds. You can stream content from a feed all the way to the first article that was fetched by feedly servers: just uncheck the "unread only" box in feedly. But articles older than 31 days will automatically show as "read".

  With 10+ feeds in an account, older articles are quickly buried by the flow of new articles. While it is possible to keep track of the articles you want to keep around and leave them unread, it quickly becomes a hassle.

  That's where the "save for later" button (and custom tags) come in: articles that are important, but require some time to read, can be kept around forever (no time limit). Many people use this flow: quickly review the articles of the day, tag the ones to be read later, then switch to the "saved for later" view to read them, and maybe tag the very best ones with a different tag.

  I'm sorry we cannot fulfill your needs. The current solution, however imperfect, is the best one we've found to work both for light and for heavy readers, for "inbox zero" and for "inbox 10,000" readers, for readers with 10 feeds readers with 10,000 feeds.

  Regards.

-- 

David Chatenay

Feedly

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