OpenRSS runs a service that creates RSS feeds for sites without them and writes about the state of RSS.
HN commenters point to it for RSS feeds from Bluesky and YouTube and as a tool for making feeds from sites that lack them.
FYI: Mastodon offers RSS feeds for single accounts (e.g. https://mastodon.social/@primatologyxyz/with_replies.rss), but efforts to extend native RSS support seem to have gone stale (e.g. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/21500).
However, there are RSS bridges like RSSHub (https://docs.rsshub.app/routes/social-media#mastodon) and OpenRSS (https://openrss.org/blog/mastodon-rss-feeds) that offer RSS feeds for the "Explore" and "Hashtag" sections for local instances.
> is there a reliable way to find an RSS feed for a given site, assuming it has one?
Any half-decent feed reader app will do it for you after just pasting the website’s address.
> Are there good tools to RSSify sites that don’t have one?
https://openrss.org
https://rss-bridge.org
https://createfeed.fivefilters.org
And for newsletters:
https://notifier.in
https://kill-the-newsletter.com
Openrss.org is a non-profit that advocates for RSS adoption in addition to providing RSS feeds for websites that have none and cleainup/improving existing rss feeds.
Consider helping them out if this interests you, you might even be using a feed already as they have some custom feeds for github like for discussions and issues.
https://openrss.org/about/contributing
Bluesky also:
Bluesky has launched RSS feeds
https://openrss.org/blog/bluesky-has-launched-rss-feeds - January 15, 2024
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39007756 - January 2024
This is cool and fun because you can use Bluesky as RSS PubSub infra. You simply post as a user and clients can consume via RSS, you rely on Bluesky's PDS or host your own, etc.
It feels more snappy to me than Twitter/X.
This seems to be a USP: https://openrss.org/blog/bluesky-has-launched-rss-feeds
And no addictive cat videos please.
Bonus points: install this for facebook: https://socialfixer.com/
This is my hide posts section of socialfixer:
Reels and short videos
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You can get an RSS feed for any user on Bluesky
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39007756 | https://openrss.org/blog/bluesky-has-launched-rss-feeds
My opinion is that their ATProto is better than ActivityPub b/c account migration and global search among other things