feed reader score project

You should have been issued a code which is just a bunch of hex digits. If you're curious, it has no meaning in and of itself. It's just a bunch of random numbers rendered as a hex string that's long enough to make collisions rather unlikely.

You use it to make a unique feed URL, like this:

http://2.fs.rachelbythebay.com/feed/test/<key>

Plug that into your feed reader program... but *not* your browser. You will drop a bunch of noise into the reports if your browser loads it. (This is why I don't provide the full link to you in the mails: you can't click what isn't there!)

If you have multiple feed readers to test, use separate keys!

Things to keep in mind

Key is required

If you don't have a key, nothing useful will happen. If you need one, just ask. If you need more keys to measure different things, or just want a fresh start after fixing something in your feed reader, let me know. It's no big deal to have more running.

This works best with one reader per key

If you have multiple programs, it'll work a whole lot better with multiple keys. Otherwise it'll be hard to tell them apart. If you need more keys, just ask. It's just another row in a database on my end.

If you've already mixed things up, no worries! Just get another key and then only use it with one reader. No big deal.

What you're doing by using this

You're going to generate requests to a fake Atom feed that has a unique URL, and those requests will be logged on my side, including a good chunk of metadata about how the feed reader program behaved when it generated that request.

This is not a real feed

There's a very simple and completely useless "post" in the feed.

These URLs are not durable

If the host stops resolving, check back here for more information. You'll probably need to delete that version of the feed from your reader.

(This is what happened January 17, 2025, as warned here.)

The fake feed is http-only

If your feed reader forces you to use https, this won't work for you at the moment.

How to see your report

Go here in your web browser:

https://rachelbythebay.com/api/fsr/<key>

Don't put this URL into a feed reader. It's not a feed.

You probably shouldn't be polling this in any robotic fashion, especially if you are no longer participating in the test.

What happens next? What should my feed reader be doing?

If you want my recommendations on feed reader behaviors, I've put those and a bunch of other nuggets about the problem space on the help page.