That’s like suggesting some-random-percentage of hyper-linking, say 90%, is pointless because it’s a ’shortcut’. Of course it is. Linking to content saves your readers (some of whom will have lost brain cells reading your article, no offence) effort.

Suggesting RSS is at best ‘useful’, is to minoritize the majority of wisdump readers.

>As far as saying “element” instead of “layout” — I guess I just assumed Wisdump readers would make the connection.

What? Your article tries to draw parallels that don’t exist. It’s not possible to make a connection when you don’t actually provide good cause.

RSS icons that follow the standard, make it easier for folks to find feeds. If folks deviate away from that, then fine, but that doesn’t automatically make the standard itself irrelvant.

What validity do w3c standards have, if they’re rendered invalid by someone not following them? That’s ultimately equivalent to the question you ask.

Surely you understand that’s illogical.

Standards exist for a reason – they aren’t negated by someone not following them.

And you’ve still not clearly covered what any of that has to do with table ‘abuse’, given tables were never standardised by the w3c at any time.

They were a useful element when CSS centric design was still in it’s infancy. Heavy usage does not equate 1:1 with abuse.

I’m honestly not at all sure what your article is trying to say, other than you hate seeing orange RSS icons?

“I don’t know” ?

You don’t what comparison you were making? Why were you making a comparison if you don’t know what it is? Why make the comparison at all?

@Randa: I suppose it is more useful, but I’m not sure that it’s much better than “Valid” buttons, like you say. Valid buttons lead you to a W3C Validator screen, showing you that there are no errors (and hopefully no warnings). But that’s not something you need the button for, it’s just a shortcut. It’s also informational, concerning the technology behind the site, and not all that useful to the reader. While RSS is useful to readers, as it does allow them to interface with the site, I’m not sure a shortcut to the RSS is much better than a shortcut to an XHTML Validation page.

@Katy: I’m sure the icons do increase widespread knowledge of RSS. But is that enough to justify displaying them everywhere?

@Cameron: I don’t know, Cameron. They both may be, as Atwood said, abusing a technology. Table designs were abusive to the purpose of tables, perhaps displaying RSS icons is abusing the technology of RSS feeds. As far as saying “element” instead of “layout” — I guess I just assumed Wisdump readers would make the connection. Sorry.

Big superfluous RSS icons are not comparable to table-layout fiascos (BTW you just say “table elements” not “table layouts” there’s a difference!) they’re more comparable to say, animated gifs. It’s a small indulgence on part of the designer.

Icon will be superfluous in a few years, but only if there is only a main feedline (no tags feeds, no category feeds, no comments feeds, etc.).