Thing 15 (Revisited): RSS Revisited....Well...Revisited

Just a quickie, and I am doing this in a separate post to keep this organized,  about one of the dangers of un-mediated RSS Feeds in certain instances.

In looking at Thing 21 last night, the first Wiki one, I came across Arbor Heights Elementary School's Wiki. This seems to serve as the school's website. On it are helpful links to get the information you need about the school and the Wiki seems to be current and well maintained.

On the Homepage it has RSS feeds for local Seattle area neighborhood, and other, blogs. Kind of a one stop shopping page for the parents of the students there. The issue is that on the night of March 18th the West Seattle Blog feed had the highlighted story about a local landlord who was opening "The Beer Junction". This was picked up and displayed on the elementary school website.

This points out an issue that arises with the use or embedding of RSS feeds that needs to be addressed by those embedding them, giving access to your readers to someone you have no control over. Was the story about the store a legit news story, sure. Was it appropriate for an elementary school website? I don't know. Do you think there would have been an issue if it had appeared on the front page of the Miller/Driscoll website?

Comments