Password Protected RSS Export

[I am Freddy G]

I think a good feature would be password protected RSS Export Feeds. My Reasoning is because phpBB has it :P no but really.

I think it would be a benefit for forum members. You know how some forums have Staff Forums, or Donor Forums. It isn't fair that they can not have an rss feed for their device or feed reader.

Forums are a place for conversation and a RSS Feed will allow fast updates when members can not be on the site.

Does anyone else in the IP.Board Community think this will be a Magnificent Feature?

By using the word Magnificent I can hope to get a bigger response

[Wolfie]

I think a good feature would be password protected RSS Export Feeds. My Reasoning is because phpBB has it :P no but really.

I think it would be a benefit for forum members. You know how some forums have Staff Forums, or Donor Forums. It isn't fair that they can not have an rss feed for their device or feed reader.

Forums are a place for conversation and a RSS Feed will allow fast updates when members can not be on the site.

Does anyone else in the IP.Board Community think this will be a Miniscule Feature?

No sir, don't like it... If they're password protected, then how can I leech the content that I'm not supposed to have access to? :o

Okay seriously.. Yeah seems like a good idea. Don't think I'd use it but I can see the benefit of it. Should be a pre-included feature, which could be useful for boards that want to sell content via RSS.

Donor forums? Are they gonna donate a heart or a lung to my site to give it some life?

[I am Freddy G]

lol no I mean I have donations and if they donate $10 they get access to it. Helps pay the hosting bills.

[b0x]

Ideally the RSS feed should automatically take into consideration what forums the user should get the feeds from. This is how the RSS feed works on SMF.

[bfarber]

Ideally the RSS feed should automatically take into consideration what forums the user should get the feeds from. This is how the RSS feed works on SMF.

To do that would require password protection, essentially, which is what the OP suggested. :)

[I am Freddy G]

Yeah .htaccess password protected feeds :D

[Wolfie]

bfarber here's an idea to toy with, not sure how feasible it would be though.

When someone wants to subscribe to a protected feed, the URL is generated is for the member (if it's a permission based feed). So long as they have access to that feed, they get it. Once their access is cut off, the feed will no longer work for them. That URL would have something similar to a session key, in the format of domain.com/forums/rss/key/(identifying key) and that key would point to the members account AND the specific feed they are wanting (forum or whatever). That way, to remove access, just remove that key and it's done. Key could be removed either because of abuse (sharing it with other people), loss of access to the content or the member might have requested a new feed URL (which in turn would delete the old one and generate a new one).

Something similar to the way some private torrent trackers work, where a key identifies the member. Added security could be detecting where the feed is going to (ie, a website pulling it) and once that's detected, it could be 'locked' so that no one other site could pull from it.

The benefit would be that it would be hard for the content to be shared except to redistribute it. Whereas otherwise a password could be shared and multiple people could then leech from it.

[I am Freddy G]

Does anyone disagree?

[Mark]

bfarber here's an idea to toy with, not sure how feasible it would be though.

When someone wants to subscribe to a protected feed, the URL is generated is for the member (if it's a permission based feed). So long as they have access to that feed, they get it. Once their access is cut off, the feed will no longer work for them. That URL would have something similar to a session key, in the format of domain.com/forums/rss/key/(identifying key) and that key would point to the members account AND the specific feed they are wanting (forum or whatever). That way, to remove access, just remove that key and it's done. Key could be removed either because of abuse (sharing it with other people), loss of access to the content or the member might have requested a new feed URL (which in turn would delete the old one and generate a new one).

Something similar to the way some private torrent trackers work, where a key identifies the member. Added security could be detecting where the feed is going to (ie, a website pulling it) and once that's detected, it could be 'locked' so that no one other site could pull from it.

The benefit would be that it would be hard for the content to be shared except to redistribute it. Whereas otherwise a password could be shared and multiple people could then leech from it.

I think you're overcomplicating it ;) A better idea would probably be just to prompt users via HTTP authentication for their username and password when viewing the feed.

[Wolfie]

I think you're overcomplicating it ;) A better idea would probably be just to prompt users via HTTP authentication for their username and password when viewing the feed.

I'm thinking about someone being able to import it into their own board for viewing. Like let's say that the hosting board (supplying the feed) provides content that they are selling, then the client board imports the content for their members to read. Similar to how some sites sell off their content via feeds, and the buyers are allowed to publish it on their sites in an effort to attract visitors.

[Dhillon]

I'd rather have an option to limit the characters for each article in the feed to prevent forum leeching via RSS.
VB admins have been demanding this for years now !

[bfarber]

I think you're overcomplicating it ;) A better idea would probably be just to prompt users via HTTP authentication for their username and password when viewing the feed.

Can't do that. Feed readers won't be able to supply the credentials in most cases (I'm sure some can be configured to submit credentials for htaccess authentication, but not all). What we'd need to do is use a special key in the URL, like the report center feed does now, most likely.

[Matt]

I've been giving RSS feeds some thought recently. We already have an XML skin so you can already syndicate any URL you like. All we need to do is create an RSS skin and it will then just syndicate content you have permission to read.

[iozay]

Anyway, I like the per-user generated key idea :) So I can import/export some content without having to worry that others that I don't wish to leach do it :lol:

[phylaxis]

I've been giving RSS feeds some thought recently. We already have an XML skin so you can already syndicate any URL you like. All we need to do is create an RSS skin and it will then just syndicate content you have permission to read.

On a somewhat related topic, do you simply have the ability to password protect a directory based on a members group? What I would like to do is use IP.Subscription to set up paid membership groups and then use that login to allow or disallow access to some various kinds of content. It could include RSS feeds, downloads, etc. I didn't know if maybe combining IP.Content, IP.Download, IP.Subscription was required or not.

[Noni]

What happened to this suggestion?

I find it very useful