Caffeinated Coder

My deepest apologies.

I just noticed that I inadvertently spammed everyone subscribed via feedburner with a half dozen del.icio.us feed entries.

The rogue link barrage began when I activated the Feedburner LinkSplicer feature under the false assumption that I would be able to filter saved links based on tags as well as control the start date. Instead Feedburner set forth on an apparently irreversible course of spitting out crap from the last several weeks that I tagged because I eventually might want to read them, not because I thought they were particularly good.

Feedburner has some amazing traffic analysis features, but this particular feature is a usability nightmare. Not only were there no configuration options available, but there was no posted information about how it would work and no way to reverse it after it happened.

For this I am awarding Feedburner an honorary Caffeinated Codey Shoddy-As-Hell Feature Award. For shame…

What makes this even more frustrating to me is that I have serious reservations about publishing delicious links to my feed in the first place.

When it comes to link recommendations, most people clearly prefer the more democratic approach offered by sites like Reddit or Dzone. Those that don’t are probably just too busy drowning in a sea of unread RSS feeds to care and will probably hate me for making them feel even more guilty over shit that they don’t have time to read. If nothing else, I didn’t want to risk burying my legitimate content under a mess of entries that most people will probably just view as spam.

So why did I do it?

I blame it on Reg Braithwaite. His delicious posts have been my single best source for ‘off-the-beaten path’, top-notch posts over the last couple of years and therefore has given me the unrealistic expectation that I can do it in a way that people will like rather than in a way that more closely resembles an ‘Enlarge-Your-Penis’ spammer (not that some of you don’t like those as well).

How am I going to do this?

I make the following three promises.

1. I won’t ever publish more than three links on any given day or three days in a given week. Most of the time I will probably publish far fewer. I see anything more than that as a blogger simply leaving a breadcrumb trail of their internet surfing habits, which is not what I want to do. I’ve actually set up a second delicious account for my blog so I can still use my primary one for my ancillary TO DO reading list along with a holding bin for potential candidates to publish. I promise I’ll only publish ones that I think are must-reads.
2. I won’t ever publish a link without commentary. I doubt I’ll be able to resist the urge to be a sarcastic rat bastard at times, but otherwise I’ll just try to explain in a few quick sentences why I liked the post so much.
3. I’ll eventually use these delicious posts for future Caffeinated Codey posts, a series which I am considering resurrecting from the dead if only so I won’t have to take out a restraining order on Justice or D’Arcy, who are obviously still lusting after the chance to receive more of these coveted awards.

Hopefully, you’ll like this added addition to my blog. If not, please let me know. I’ll probably tell you to go screw yourself, but at least we’ll all feel better afterwards…

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