Far too often, I come across RSS feeds put up by print magazines and newspapers that completely defeat the purpose of RSS feeds.

I understand that release cycles of articles are supposed to line up; a whole bunch of articles may come out on 1 day, followed by a break.  But the problem is, some of these publications actually release articles THROUGHOUT the day - a visit to their website, as well as the timestamps on articles reveals this.

Alas, the RSS feeds do not reflect this.

(Yes, I deliberately put the image inline just to make a point.)

The purpose of the RSS feed is to make content available to your readers as it becomes available.  A sudden flood of 50-100 articles (as shown in this screenshot above) is quite irritating.  The problem is compounded by the fact that the "RSS" feed shows a subject field, and a link.  No summary.  No synopsis.  No details.  Just a "catchy" subject.

If you're not going to release articles as they're finished, and prefer to release 50 articles at the same time, then perhaps a digest form is best.  Why not just syndicate these titles, packaged into 1 post?  If you're going to use cryptic, uninformative titles, then a 1 line summary is simple courtesy to a reader.

This "RSS" feed is getting removed from my reader.  I just mark all as read, anyway. =)