shlomp
Oct 29th, 2005, 07:24 AM
Instead of being listed where they should be alphabetically, some podcasters deliberately use special characters to put themselves at the top of the list. This is stupid. It makes your podcast harder to find because it's not where it should be, and especially hard to find on MP3 players that only allow you to search using only one character. e.g. I couldn't search for a podcast called 'Dead Dog Show' - by Dru and Carrie because typing in D wouldn't bring it up. (Apologies if that podcast actually exists!)
Most of us hate spam. It's not spam but it follows the same train of thought - abuse of the system. After all if someone wants to abuse the way our syndication software works, doesn't that put you off them? I does for me - i think "well hang on, you're not exactly being fair are you? so why should I listen to you? I won't."
All podcast directories and the download software should, without notice, alter the way their listings work, and any podcasts starting with a special character should go after Z, not the top. Or- the special characters should be stripped out by the software. It's not that difficult.
That way, the podcasters abusing the system will quickly stop doing it.
The worst offender is the man who runs '----- AAA Podcast -----' who actually advises podcasters to use special characters for that purpose. Incredible.
I write PHP websites for a living, and am sorely temped to create a podcast directory, simply because I know how to stop those podcasters abusing the system, at least on my site, so that I and other subscribers didn't have to put up with it.
Most of us hate spam. It's not spam but it follows the same train of thought - abuse of the system. After all if someone wants to abuse the way our syndication software works, doesn't that put you off them? I does for me - i think "well hang on, you're not exactly being fair are you? so why should I listen to you? I won't."
All podcast directories and the download software should, without notice, alter the way their listings work, and any podcasts starting with a special character should go after Z, not the top. Or- the special characters should be stripped out by the software. It's not that difficult.
That way, the podcasters abusing the system will quickly stop doing it.
The worst offender is the man who runs '----- AAA Podcast -----' who actually advises podcasters to use special characters for that purpose. Incredible.
I write PHP websites for a living, and am sorely temped to create a podcast directory, simply because I know how to stop those podcasters abusing the system, at least on my site, so that I and other subscribers didn't have to put up with it.