Board Game News

Frequently Asked Questions.

• It doesn't work!
  Not a question, but very much correct. This is a work in progress and multiple parts of the system do not work correctly at present. The bits which are missing are (but not currently limited to):
  • Removing irrelevant entries from the partial list (Complete)
  • Searching (Complete)
  • Distinguishing between the various versions of feed types
  • Submitting a new feed
  • Popular articles and feeds
  • Trending topics (Partially Complete)
• The count is off. Why don't the numbers match the Blog Roll?
  The numbers shown count the actual feed entries. The Blog Roll (and feed list) is generated from the responses of querying those feeds. If we can't retrieve them, or the feed is not in a format that can be parsed then it is not included. But it is still counted.
• So why can't you read the feeds?
  There are multiple formats to news feeds such as RDF, RSS v.90 and Atom. At present we only parse RSS v1.0 and v2.0. Each website uses it's own format and each implement it in a different manner, and many even miss out integral parts of it. It's a complete mess and we're doing whatever we can to get the current information.
  
• Why do later sections have entries missing?
  RSS feeds usually have a pre-set amount of entries. For example 30, 50 or 100. Not many carry entries right back to the beginning of the feed. So as newer posts are added, older ones are removed. Some feeds post more regularly and therefore have a higher number of newer posts. The Feeds are not stored for posterity in this application, so as a result, the later panels of the list appear to have a reduced number of entries and some are missing.
• Why are some graphics or names missing?
  If the feed is mis-configured for some entries, such as the name of the blog, then it is not displayed. We can't show what isn't there. As for the graphic, we use Google's Favicons feature to show the graphic of the domain in question. Some sites have security restrictions in place to prevent graphics from being used on other sites, or just don't have an actual favicon in place. We can't show what isn't there.
• Why doesn't the time match the current time?
  The time does match. This website is run out of the UK. It takes the date, time and time zone of the publication date of the entry and converts it to a standardised UK time, which is then used to display the entry in the timeline. Of course, if there is an error in the publication date...
• But occasionally some of the times are actually in the future. Surely you messed up?
  It's possible, but doubtful. I think what you'll find is that the date/time of the feed in question is messed up.
• How are Trends calculated?
  There is a master list of curated Trend Topics. An attempt was made to automatically determine Topics but this was found to be unreliable and a manual list was decided on. When computing the daily entries, a count is made of and subjects which contain the Topic keyword, this is then given a weighting based on how new the feed is. The totals are then summed, sorted and the most common entries from the feeds are displayed.
• The Blog Roll shows that you're including feed 'x', but why aren't there any entries?
  Well there could be multiple reasons for that. Perhaps we couldn't read the feed, or there is an error in parsing it. Or it could be that the feed is not in RSS format but in an unsupported format. Or the feed is stagnant and there are no entries covering the dates listed. If it's in the Blogroll then we loaded it.
• How often are the feeds updated?
  Every hour, on the hour. Or as often as the "Make" command is run. I have other News aggregators that run on a faster schedule because they have news entries that have a higher throughput. But for Board Game, hourly seems just fine.
• OK, but Kickstarter doesn't provide newsfeeds. How is that updated?
  Yeah, that was tricky. I wanted the last Kickstarter Tabletop Games launches, so I do a simple web request and then pull the information out of the HTML directly.
• So couldn't you do that for other websites?
  Sure I could. But is it worth it? KS does a lot to enable board game creation. Indeed some of the most popular and powerful games were created via this platform - Gloomhaven and Exploding Kittens immediately spring to mind. But is it worth the effort to get details from other sites who don't bother to provide news feeds? Not really... unless they want to sponsor me.