2011 UK Census

If so, then head here to find details and direct links to the feeds we have available.

If not, then read on to find out all about RSS feeds - what they are, how you can subscribe to and view them, and which standard RSS feeds are available from the Census consultation site.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

RSS is a common web feed format used to publish web content in a standard format. Feeds are typically used for content that is updated frequently, such as blogs, news headlines, or forum contributions.

An RSS feed includes full or summarized text, as well as metadata such as publishing date or authorship details, but without necessarily included full rich formatting.

What can I do with RSS feeds?

RSS feeds let the producers of web content syndicate the content to users automatically - letting them know when website content changes are available, and making them instantly viewable.

Content changes can be when something has been added, something has been deleted, something has been edited, or when someone has written a page comment, etc. Instead of opening a website or frequently to check if there's something new, RSS feeds check automatically per given time interval, collect the updates, and make them available to view.

Users can subscribe to feeds from all of their favourite websites to receive timely updates, and can collect many different feeds together to access updates from all the sites in one convenient place.

How do I use RSS?

Users can subscribe to and view feed content using software called an 'RSS reader' - also commonly referred to as a 'feed reader', or 'aggregator'. There are many popular aggregators available which can be used to access feeds on a computer, a number of which are web based and require no download or installation, Many applications also allow feeds to be viewed in other ways, such as on mobile devices. Becuase RSS is based on a standardized XML file format, the information is published once but can be viewed by many different programs and platforms.

Once you have chosen an aggregator, you can go to a website you would like to monitor for change and look for the link or icon that will indicate it has RRS feeds available. Most sites that support RSS will make this obvious by using the RSS logo

This will provide the URL details which you can either enter into your aggregator to subscribe to the feed, or click on in a browser that initiates the subscription process.

Once subscrived, the RSS aggregator will check the subscribed feeds regularly for new work, download any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

What feeds are available on this site?

We provide a number of RSS feeds that can help to you keep informed about changes to the site. There are separate feeds for all additions and changes to pages on the site, one just giving updates for the blog, one feed with all comments and page discussions, and one with all new posts in the forum.

The feed details you can use in your preferred feed aggregator are on our RSS page along with direct links to the add the feeds to a selection of the most common aggregators.

Each of our feeds can be customised or extended, to provide for example, updates just to certain page categories (such as the wiki or glossary), updates to pages with specific tags, just new forum threads, or new forum posts within specific threads.

So, if you like using RSS feeds, and would like short cuts to other custom feeds, let us know.

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