Frequently Asked Questions
Why are there so few blogs on this site?
Because not all that many MPs have a blog, not all of the ones who do have a blog have a blog which is suitable for syndication, and not all the ones who do have a blog which is suitable for syndication are in our list of bloggers. Over time, we aim to fix the last of these three. The others are beyond our control.
Some articles look wierd or messed up. What's up?
Syndication isn't an exact science. Formatting that works on the original article in its native website might not work here. The software which powers the part of the site which retrieves data from the original blogs tries to sort that out as much as possible, but sometimes it gets it wrong.
Some articles seem to have more tags, or more relevent tags, than others. Why?Again, this is a syndication issue. Some articles come with their own tags or categories already assigned, and where that's the case then we use them. But some articles don't have any tags, so for those we try to auto-generate them by scanning the article text for relevent keywords. that's mostly reliable, but sometimes it can throw up odd results. And, of course, it will entirely miss any situations where the article itself deals with an obscure topic that doesn't match a possible tag.
Why does the search lead to non-existant pages, or fail to find pages that do exist?To save development time, this site uses Google Custom Search rather than its own search facility. The main drawback of that is that it can only list the pages that Google has got indexed. Unfortunately, Gogle has managed to index a whole bunch of pages from an early incarnation of the site that used a different page taxonomy, so any of those simply won't work. Meanwhile, any new pages won't show up in the search until Google has had a chance to index them.
Over time, the duff page problem will go away as the old pages drop out of the index, and new pages will be indexed more quickly once Google picks up the sitemap. But, in the long run, we'll probably have to add a site-specific search facility eventually.
I know of an MP's blog that you don't already syndicate. Can I tell you about it?Yes, please. Use the add new blog page for that.
Isn't this a breach of copyright?Technically, yes. But RSS syndication is common across the Internet, and the principle of blog aggregation is already well established. That is, after all, what RSS is for - it stands for "Really Simple Syndication". So we've taken the liberty of assuming that if a blog has a suitable RSS feed, then the author intends for it to be used for its intended purpose.
If anyone objects to having their blog syndicated here then we'll happily remove it from the feed list.
I'm an MP, and I don't want my blog syndicated at They Blog For You. Will you remove it?Yes, of course. Just email 'chiefwhip{at}theyblogforyou.com', making the obvious amendment to turn that into a usable email address, and let us know that you'd like it removed.
Will you be adding any other sources of blogs, such as MEPs, MSPs, MLAs, etc?Yes, dependent on the availability of circular tuits. MEPs and members of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are the highest on the list. Members of local authorities, including the London Authority and county councils, may be added later but that's a much lower priority.
Are there any other features that you've got planned?Again, that's a tuit-dependent question. Adding the ability to comment on individual articles is probably the most likely enhancement.
I've got a question that isn't answered here. Can I ask it?Yes, of course. Just email 'chiefwhip{at}theyblogforyou.com', making the obvious amendment to turn that into a usable email address, and ask away.