Golden Gate Bridge, Rodefeld, CC-by

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy for me. I moved from Toulouse, France, to San Francisco, California as a consequence of my hiring by the Wikimedia Foundation (the non-profit that runs Wikipedia) where I work as Product Manager for Multimedia Usability.

I just got my Internet connection at home set up, so you should see more regular blog articles now. I have a few drafts in the works and a lot of updates to post related to my work at the Foundation. In the meantime, I invite you to read the summary published today on the Wikimedia blog.

I assume that you write your weblog in order to be read. The more people read your work, the further your ideas travel and the more impact you have. At least, it’s how it works for me.

Like many other readers of yours, I use RSS feeds to stay informed of new articles you publish. I collect RSS feeds from many websites into a desktop application that sorts them by topic.

I happen to travel a lot these days, which means I have scarce Internet connection. As a consequence, I update my RSS feeds when I can and read them offline later, for example in the train I am right now.

The problem is that your RSS feed only contains the first three lines of your article. Sometimes, it even cuts  a sentence in the middle. In order to read the full article, I have to visit your website, because somewhere in your blog’s configuration, you disabled a setting allowing the full article to be included in your RSS feed.

Please don’t do that.

Yes, please.

Don’t force me to read your work online on your blog. It’s annoying. It’s rude. It frustrates me.

I want to be able to read your work wherever I am, whenever I want, even if I don’t have an Internet connection. I am really interested in what you have to say; I value your ideas, your insights, your sense of humor; I enjoy reading your prose.

Dear blogger, if you care about your readers as much as they care about what you have to say, please make it easier for them to read your work. Not more difficult.

Thank you.