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FUBAR’d ScienceDirect RSS feeds

This is just a short post: to vent my anger at a fair few of my RSS feeds being totally FUBAR‘d at the moment. It’s too long for a tweet, and too short for a full post, but here goes:

At least three of my ScienceDirect journal article alert RSS feeds are totally FUBAR’d at the moment.

1) Paleoworld (CAS): http://rss.sciencedirect.com/publication/science/33783
2) Cretaceous Research: http://rss.sciencedirect.com/publication/science/6755
3) Geobios: http://rss.sciencedirect.com/publication/science/7224

They *used* to serve-up informative alerts to new issues and articles for the palaeontological publications listed. A handy alert system that’s both beneficial to me (interested reader, scientist end-user) AND the publisher themselves – advertising their wares (academic research articles held behind paywalls).

Yet now, I’m getting Biosensors and Bioelectronics from the 1st feed, and Current Opinion in Plant Biology from the 2nd feed.

Finally, I’m getting an entertaining litany of journal article alerts from the 3rd feed, including such COMPLETELY UNRELATED TITLES as Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, Journal of International Money and Finance, Gondwana Research, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Journal of Crystal Growth, and many more…

The ‘contact us’ page over at ScienceDirect doesn’t inspire me with confidence, so I’ll just blog it here.

ScienceDirect – please sort this out!

A note to publishers who may hopefully read this:

a) Once RSS feed URLs are set, I expect them to stay constant like a DOI URL. It’s a hassle to have to change feed URLs.

b) If RSS feed URLs for whatever reason have to be changed/discontinued, then PLEASE send a message via that RSS feed URL to notify subscribers.

*rant over*

PS It looks like the RSS feed service may even have been discontinued (without any warning!) if the absence of an RSS feed button here is anything to go by.

Has anyone else seen RSS feeds of theirs go haywire? Is it just me?

Resurrected comments from the old blog:

LizzzyZ
I am actually from the Marketing Communication Dept in Elsevier (part of my role is to monitor social media, blogs etc).

Sorry to hear about all your troubles with RSS Feed etc,

I have asked my colleagues in our First Line Support Team to look into this matter and I will get back to you soon.

A Liked Reply
7 months ago 1 Like

Ross Mounce
Thanks Lizzy. Sorry I was too lazy to report it directly to Elsevier. We’ve also established now that it’s probably not a problem at your end, rather it’s Google Reader’s problem (which is the RSS reader that I guess a good majority of people use). As for contacting them about this… I’ve tried via their Twitter @googlereader. But no useful response so far. Many thanks

Edit Reply
7 months ago in reply to LizzzyZ

LizzzyZ
I also monitor Twitter and seen your tweet… I am waiting for a response that might be able to shed some light.

Like Reply
7 months ago in reply to Ross Mounce

Ross Mounce
I don’t suppose you got that reply yet?

Just came across another wierd GoogleReader specific problem today too:

The new Palaeontology (PalAss journal) issue got pushed out over RSS today. The titles and abstracts are all fine BUT when one clicks on the link to go see the paper… you get “Error – DOI Not Found”. Actually the DOI’s are fine, and the URL links as supplied on the RSS feed are also fine, it’s just GoogleReader is adding %2F into the valid URL :S

e.g.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2Fj….
instead of
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.14…

simple bug, simple fix…? I wonder where one can report GoogleReader bugs?

Edit Reply
6 months ago in reply to LizzzyZ

Elizabethzwaaf
I have spoken to the Product Manager, and basically they are currently working on fixing our RSS feeds but don’t have an exact timeline at the moment for when they can release the fixes.

A Liked Reply
6 months ago in reply to Ross Mounce 1 Like

Ross Mounce
hmmm… the official suggested bug reporting forum isn’t that inspiring… http://www.google.com/support/…

Edit Reply
6 months ago in reply to Ross Mounce

Jason Snyder
You’re not the only one – my Behavioural Brain Research and Biological Psychiatry feeds are filled with geological content…

A Liked Reply
8 months ago 1 Like

Ross Mounce
Excellent! Is there a systematic error at work here?
I got 50 erroneous items posted to each of the feeds on the 2nd of October.
I’m thinking this is perhaps when the problem started…?

Edit Reply
8 months ago in reply to Jason Snyder

o.k.
Hi,

I am not sure if this relevant anymore, but the tip given in http://www.andreaswacker.com/b… would seem to solve the problem with wrong feeds.

I have not found a solution to the “DOI not found” issue though,

Like Reply
4 months ago

Tuomo Kalliokoski
I’ve got the problem with Liferea -feed reader.

I want to read:
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
But I’m getting it mixed with
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

Like Reply
7 months ago

Andrew Farke
I’m having the same issue. . .it’s annoying!!! And it looks like I occasionally get the same issues as J. Salvador Arias, too. But then, my Cretaceous Research feed has a mix of junk and good stuff. I heard a rumor that the problem primarily affects GoogleReader – anyone have cross-platform experience for comparison?

Like Reply
8 months ago

Jon Tennant
I use the program RSSReader. Sometimes, I have to extract the feed through GoogleReader, and that’s what seems to be creating the problem for me with Cretaceous Research.

A Liked Reply
8 months ago in reply to Andrew Farke 1 Like

Andrew Farke
I just installed Thunderbird and downloaded my RSS feeds; I can confirm that everything works just fine in Thunderbird (i.e., no weird feeds).

A Liked Reply
8 months ago in reply to Andrew Farke 1 Like

Ross Mounce
Looks like I might need to contact @googlereader then! You’re right. It appears to be a Google Reader specific issue, the feeds seem okay when viewed with other readers. Curiouser and curiouser!

Edit Reply
8 months ago in reply to Andrew Farke

J. Salvador Arias
I have the same problem :-/… although from time to time I receive the right feeds… (but with the amount of “spam” I probably miss the real ones x-p)

Like Reply
8 months ago


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