Do you have RSS feeds imported to your board from anywhere? Perhaps industry news for your subject? The only RSS feed I have imported is from my Linnie Blog to my Linnie Forum because a lot of my users never check the blog, so the feed brings the new entries to their attention.
I am in the process of setting up coupon code RSS feeds for posting to the forum... I'm so glad that functionality was already built into vB
We just have two feeds and I use a vb.org mod to put each into their own single thread so as not to spam a forum with them.
Hmm, could you link me to that mod Lynne? Maybe I should set that up before the coupon code posting begins in earnest.
I have an "Umpire News from Around the Web" section in my forum and have about 100 RSS feeds set up flooding the section with posts. I have the "Umpire Empire Reporter" set up to have all posts moderated before posting because 95% of what I get is just junk. But it is worth it there some issues which stir up good discussion.
Lynne, is it flexible to do something like 'force into a thread daily' as opposed to always putting the items into the same thread? In my case, I'd be after something like "Throughout the course of the day put all items from 'Feed XYZ' into a thread named 'Feed XYZ - Month Day, Year' where 'Month Day, Year' is the current system date instead of always putting them into a thread named 'Feed XYZ' or similar.'"
I do not believe so, no. You may be able to modify it to do that, but I like all my posts to go into one thread, so I've never bothered to look into doing anything else with it. (The first day I had the rss start posting, one of my mods thought it was spam and threw the thread in the trash. I can just imagine what he would think if I had a thread a day from the feed!)
Thanks. When time permits I may go through the code then to see if it can be done easily enough (I hate rewriting big chunks of code from others mods so I try to keep any of my customizations to a minimum for when it comes time to upgrading them). One of ways in which a daily feed would be useful is for stuff like running a community that concentrates on local neighborhood events and so having a daily thread with links to local newspapers, etc. might be good. Sort of a "What's going on in {town name} today..." thread.
Could be. But to be honest, it bothers me to go to a site and hit New Posts and get a bunch of threads from a posterbot. I don't go to a forum for that; I go for the threads from the actual users. This is why I keep all my posterbot posts in a thread. I single thread showing up when you hit New Posts is no big deal.
I have a few feeds from various news sites, such as yahoo news and the BBC. Including one feed from the National Rifle Association.
The only RSS feeds I have come from my website into my forums as some people forget I have an actual website as well so it is good as it continues to remind them