"Subscribe" button on Sharebros page

[Alex Chaffee]

I just pushed an interim version of a "Subscribe" button on the
http://sharebro.org/sharebros page. If you click it, it will make a
"Shares" folder in Reader, and then add one feed to it: your
Lipsumarium feed, named something like "Alex Chaffee's Shares".

I'm taking a break now, but when I return my main decisions will be
which feeds to add to the "Shares" folder by default:

* the old Google Reader Shared Items feed (which is still available,
though maybe not for long)
* the new Lipsumarium feed (which will soon be replaced by an
identical Sharebro feed)
* the Google Plus Posts feed, via a screen-scraping service called plu.sr

and should I add those for

* the "People You Follow" list
* and/or the "People Who Follow You" list
* and/or the "Others" list

* and/or individual buttons or checkboxes on each list and/or feed and/or person

That last seems way too cluttered. Fewer buttons is better.

--
Alex Chaffee - al...@stinky.com
http://alexchaffee.com
http://twitter.com/alexch

[Nick Chaffee]

For me it created the folder and feed title, but there's nothing in the feed. 

The feed being requested cannot be found.

Perhaps because as a Safari user, I never got the lipsumarium button to work? I tried installing it in Firefox, it looks installed, yet there's no 'Share' button and the feed is still "not found." 

Am I the only one it's not working for?

--
The Sharebro Google Group: for http://sharebro.org and related development
http://groups.google.com/group/sharebro for archives and options

[Nick Chaffee]

Firebug screenshot

GET http://www.google.com/reader/api/0/stream/conten...mments=false&n=20&ck=1321135395227&client=scroll

200 OK

225ms

Not enough arguments

d.getElementById('lips-mySharedItems-b...addEventListener('click',function(e){

greade...8373921 (line 324)

[Alex Chaffee]

There's now a button on top of "People You Follow" that will start to make a bunch of feeds appear in your Reader. It'll probably time out though; I need to set up background jobs on Heroku. But try it anyway; it might be fun!

One decision I made is to subscribe to two feeds per user:

1. the old Reader one, called "Alex's Shared Items"

2. the new Sharebro/Lipsum one, called "Alex Chaffee's Shares"

To read all your friends' shares, like "People You Follow" before, click on the "Share" folder itself.

(Sadly, no Comment View yet. And remember, use the "Share" button at the top of the page. Emmanuel, we should really move it to the button bar below each item. And why does it abbreviate long articles?)

 - A

P.S. i also fixed a bug so the list of "people you don't follow back" isn't empty anymore.

[Emmanuel Pire]

Nick was using FF5, updated to 8 and it works fine now.
Still, the issue should be fixed in older FF as well.
please report if it doesn't work for you.

--
Emmanuel Pire
Web development
http://lipsumarium.com/

[Alex Chaffee]

Sharebro Status update:

Making proper background tasks was a longer task than I anticipated,
so I wrote a workaround.

http://sharebro.org/sharebros :

Now when you click "Subscribe in Reader" it will do as much as it can
for 10 seconds, then you have to click a new button to get the rest.

I also removed the top "Subscribe (to you)" button since it's redundant.

[alex kessinger]

In django I use celery, and rabbitMQ, what background que are you
hooking up for ruby?

[Alex Chaffee]

Sorry! I made a bad push and then was incommunicado for 3 hours. Site
is back up now!

[Galina Ovcharova]

Alex,

At this point, if I was a newcomer, I would not use the button, because it is not clear from looking at http://sharebro.org/sharebros (without reading this thread) what you are actually subscribing to.

Also note that even after reading this thread, I still don't feel like using the button. Note that I have already got my friends' old Reader feeds via ridllr, and when I follow the Sharebro's link "open in Reader," it shows my existing friend's feed that I got from ridllr. On the other hand, I cannot rename a feed that I got from ridllr (and this feed has the user number instead of the name). I would probably choose to replace the ridllr-originating feeds by new ones with names, but I can't even delete the existing ridllr feeds before I use your button: there is no option for unsubscribing from ridllr-originating feeds. Consequently, I don't know what will happen if I use the button. I would risk and try the button if I could choose one old feed for one friend, but I am afraid risking the entire list.

In addition, when I subscribed to your and Emmanuel's Lipsum feeds, they were both called "My shared feed." I have just checked your feed, and it still has the same name. I don't feel like getting several different feeds with the same name at once and then risking making a mistake renaming them. Before the feed name issue is fixed, it is easier to subscriber and rename one-by one.

Finally, how about those of my friends who have not registered at Lipsum yet (waiting until it becomes usable (Emmanuel knows what I mean: he is working on the bug that I showed him in my Lipsum feed))? 

In general, having some default subscription on one button is definitely useful (if it is clearly stated what this button will subscribe you to), but having some flexibility (check boxes) would also help. Without this flexibility I personally will not use the button, but will rather open each feed individually and subscribe to it individually. I have not done it yet, because I have the old friend feeds from ridllr and the majority of my friends don't have Lipsum accounts yet, but if you intend this button for those people who will come later, flexibility and clarity will be important, I think.

Alex, you and Emmanuel are doing a great work, and and I am sure that the Brotherhood really appreciates your efforts. I hope that my notes above will not be upsetting: whatever you choose to do is useful anyway, I am just trying to help you see how it looks from the outside: I'd like Sharebro to be inviting and intuitive, so that when I really ask all my friends to start using it, I don't have to fear that something will end up being a barrier for them. I believe that you have similar wishes, so I hope that you'll consider pros and cons before making your final alpha-release choice.

[Alex Chaffee]

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 9:43 AM, alex kessinger <void...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In django I use celery, and rabbitMQ,  what background que are you> hooking up for ruby?

This is a technical question so I'm removing the reader-diaspora list
(sharebro only).

As usual(*), I find it easier and less aggravating to roll my own.
It's easy enough to swap in another one once the benefits are clear,
and once I'm working on a team so others can hit the ground running.

This one is a dead simple job queue built on CouchDB and Ruby. It's
not entirely fresh out of the oven since I initially wrote it for a
project this summer. I'd be happy to discuss the pros and cons in
detail but briefly:

* Ant.enqueue job_name, params
-- puts an entry into the Jobs DB

* rake work
-- reads the next entry and performs it
-- if no more entries, sleeps 1 second and loops
-- logs verbose errors and results to a separate db

It fits very nicely with Heroku's Procfile system since I can enable
it with a line in a config file (Procfile: "worker: bundle exec rake
work") and turn it on and off with a command line ("heroku scale
worker=1") cf. http://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/procfile#scaling_a_process_type

I don't think the code that's in github fits the current state (which
is cleaner and more betterer) but I'll show it to you very soon.

Oh and of course, I built it test-first, so it's pretty well unit
tested. Much better tested than sharebro itself :-)

- A

(*) "as usual" -- I usually find that once I slog through and learn
the idiosyncracies of an API that was designed (if "designed" is the
right word) by and for someone else's brain, that it relies on
assumptions about environment and usage patterns that usually don't
apply to me and my apps.

P.S. by "Making proper background tasks was a longer task than I
anticipated" I meant not that the queueing was hard, but that I'd have
to create a system for actual accounts rather than piggybacking on
oauth, since the queue (whichever library) did not have the oauth
access token cookie identifying the user -- which the web site does.

[Alex Chaffee]

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Galina Ovcharova
<galina.o...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Alex,
> At this point, if I was a newcomer, I would not use the button, because it
> is not clear from looking at http://sharebro.org/sharebros (without reading
> this thread) what you are actually subscribing to.

Thanks for the feedback.

> Also note that even after reading this thread, I still don't feel like using
> the button. Note that I have already got my friends' old Reader feeds via
> ridllr, and when I follow the Sharebro's link "open in Reader," it shows my
> existing friend's feed that I got from ridllr.

Kind of. But

(a) I renamed it for you -- instead of (12345) it is now "Joe's Shared Items"
(b) that feed is going away soon! What Google giveth, Google taketh away.
(b) I also gave you the shares from the new "Share" button -- which
is, I admit, pretty confusing

> On the other hand, I cannot
> rename a feed that I got from ridllr (and this feed has the user number
> instead of the name). I would probably choose to replace the
> ridllr-originating feeds by new ones with names, but I can't even delete the
> existing ridllr feeds before I use your button: there is no option for
> unsubscribing from ridllr-originating feeds.

Really? (I mean, Ridllry? :-))

I think that's just a confusion with the new Reader UI. If you hover
over a feed (e.g. "(title unknown)" you will see a tiny
downward-pointing triangle. Click on that and you get a menu including
"Unsubscribe". Look even further down and you'll see a checkmark next
to "People you follow" which is Ridllr's folder name; select that and
it will disappear from there.

> Consequently, I don't know what
> will happen if I use the button. I would risk and try the button if I could
> choose one old feed for one friend, but I am afraid risking the entire list.

In Google Reader, folders and feeds are backwards. If I add a feed to
a folder, it doesn't remove it from any other folders; nor does
removing it from a folder unsubscribe it. So there's little or no
risk.

I agree it's confusing though.

> In addition, when I subscribed to your and Emmanuel's Lipsum feeds, they
> were both called "My shared feed."

Okay, that's just wrong and I think it's Em's fault :-)

"My" is a bad word and should not be the name of any public feed,
since as we know the world population is greater than one.

When Sharebro subscribes you to any feed, including your own, it names
it with your full name --

Joe Blow's Shares [for new lipsumy ones]
Joe Blow's Shared Items [for old GR ones]

> I have just checked your feed, and it
> still has the same name. I don't feel like getting several different feeds
> with the same name at once and then risking making a mistake renaming them.

??? What mistake?

> Before the feed name issue is fixed, it is easier to subscriber and rename
> one-by one.

That sounds sad and tedious.

> Finally, how about those of my friends who have not registered at Lipsum yet
> (waiting until it becomes usable (Emmanuel knows what I mean: he is working
> on the bug that I showed him in my Lipsum feed))?

How about them?

> In general, having some default subscription on one button is definitely
> useful (if it is clearly stated what this button will subscribe you to), but
> having some flexibility (check boxes) would also help. Without this
> flexibility I personally will not use the button, but will rather open each
> feed individually and subscribe to it individually. I have not done it yet,
> because I have the old friend feeds from ridllr and the majority of my
> friends don't have Lipsum accounts yet, but if you intend this button for
> those people who will come later, flexibility and clarity will be important,
> I think.

I hear you. I'm scared having too many checkboxes will be scary.

> Alex, you and Emmanuel are doing a great work, and and I am sure that the
> Brotherhood really appreciates your efforts. I hope that my notes above will
> not be upsetting: whatever you choose to do is useful anyway, I am just
> trying to help you see how it looks from the outside: I'd like Sharebro to
> be inviting and intuitive, so that when I really ask all my friends to start
> using it, I don't have to fear that something will end up being a barrier
> for them. I believe that you have similar wishes, so I hope that you'll
> consider pros and cons before making your final alpha-release choice.

Your input is valuable. Also invaluable, which means the same thing,
only moreso.

[Alex Chaffee]

Based on recent info from Mihai, it looks like the "broadcast state"
feeds will not be going away immediately. So maybe we should revert
back to a "Share" button that does *not* add to a remote-hosted feed,
and instead just adds the broadcast state like before.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/107397735779828096052/posts/4qaYFkumQAx
(read comment and link therein)

In parallel we will develop an external feed but based on the
two-feeds-per-user nightmare we're in now, plus bugs like source
confusion, truncation, and multibyte chars in the lipsum feed, maybe
it's best to revert to a simple system, if only for a bit.

[Emmanuel Pire]

Wait. I do know their solution is far better than any of ours but... you really think they will continue to support on *their* servers an API that is a potential threat to G+ ?

I'm afraid this good news will be good for a week or two and then we come back to our nightmare. How to confuse users ? make them change service every month.

--
The Sharebro Google Group: for http://sharebro.org and related development
http://groups.google.com/group/sharebro for archives and options

--

[Alex Chaffee]

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 11:37 PM, Emmanuel Pire <pirem...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Wait. I do know their solution is far better than any of ours but... you
> really think they will continue to support on *their* servers an API that is
> a potential threat to G+ ?

Mihai says yes, for a few weeks, maybe more. I share (ha ha) your
concern but the fact is that

(a) the current "2 feeds" system is too confusing for normal users
(including me)
(b) the current lipsumarium feeds are too flawed (for reasons I listed before)

This gives us time to experiment with solid features like Alex K is
adding to his hea.pe atom feed.

> How to confuse users ? make them change service every month.

Ah, but that's the beauty of it. They don't have to change services!
If they're using Sharebro, then when we're ready, we can *change their
subscriptions* so "Joe's Shares" points to the new feed, which has all
the features of the internal broadcast shares but is remote and safe.
And the "Share" button sends to both feeds at once, for easy
transition.

With the users' approval of course.

We can suck in the broadcast shares into the db so the new remote feed
can still start with all the old items from the broadcast feed. It'll
look like nothing's changed, except everything's changed. For instance
the new feed will have comments!

[Emmanuel Pire]

I understand what you say. hopefully :p

the RSS i provide are indeed poor. Valids but missing crucial infos, like the author as said earlier. 

I would like to stop stealing the data from google, as i have lots of limitations (but so easy!).

I'd like to get only the feed url + item id and fetch it myself, but need time for that. I hoped to see running backend code (like mine) on sarebro.org much earlier actually. And so hoped we could work together and so faster.

I thought my next move would be the bookmarklet, but it seems it will be the feeds. count on better meta data in lipsumarium flawed feeds soon!

Having 2 feeds is a nightmare, for sure.

Oh! I'm just thinking of something: what if sharebro.org (currently lipsumarium.com) gives you the ability to tie your broadcast feed to you sharebro feed (currently lipsum). So we fetch any new item, remove duplicates and serve 1 feed that is both ! how about that ?

and it goes straight to the "beauty of it" like you say, once reader api is gone, boom your feed don't even change url !

[Galina_Ovt]

Alex,

I used your "Subscribe" button. The attached Chrome screenshot shows the new "Shares" folder.

Note that I got four feeds with my name in that folder (I moved them all to the top).

The first two ones are those that I see at http://sharebro.org/sharebros

The urls of these two feeds contains two sequences with the following ID: 09800522980299441439

For example, here is the broadcast url:

http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http%3A%2F%2Flipsumarium.com%2Fgreader%2Ffeed%3F_USER_ID%3D09800522980299441439#stream/user%2F09800522980299441439%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Fbroadcast

The other two feeds look really strange: the second one says: "The feed being requested cannot be found," and you can see the first one on the screenshot. It contains only one old item, and the urls contains two different IDs (note the 2nd one: 07968247072197044349; it is also contained in the url of the last (not found) feed):

http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http%3A%2F%2Flipsumarium.com%2Fgreader%2Ffeed%3F_USER_ID%3D09800522980299441439#stream/user%2F07968247072197044349%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Fbroadcast

I have a suspicion that these two additional feeds are the result of some interaction with ridllr: ridllr's "People you follow" folder contains another copy of the same feed as you can see on the screenshot. (Yes, ridllr's feeds were renamed as you promised in your previous message.)

Also note that I cannot unsubscribe from this feed individually: there is no "Unsubscribe" option. The situation is the same with all my friends' broadcasts (called like "John's shared items"): no "Unsubscribe" option. Similar items look the same in ridllr's folder and also can't be unsubscribed individually. You are right that there are "Unsubscribe form all" and "Delete folder" options for the entire folder.

The feeds "Shares" ("John Smith's Shares") do allow "Unsubscribe" and "Rename subscription."

I don't understand, though, (as I wrote earlier) how it is gonna work with "Shares"of my friends that have not registered at lipsumarium yet. Currently their "Shares" feeds say: "The feed being requested cannot be found." After they register, will their new feeds get into my Reader automatically or will I have to subscribe to those new feeds separately?

Thanks a lot for your efforts.

Galina

[Alex Chaffee]

On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Alex Chaffee <al...@stinky.com> wrote:
> There's now a button on top of "People You Follow" that will start to make a
> bunch of feeds appear in your Reader. It'll probably time out though; I need
> to set up background jobs on Heroku. But try it anyway; it might be fun!

The button works in the background now.

It also subscribes only to the original google broadcast feed, since
most people you follow don't have Lipsumar feeds yet and the whole
double-feed thing was confusing.

I'm thinking about renaming the folder to "People you follow" too,
since that's more in line with the previous Reader UI. (I can rename
it later if the user agrees.)