What does this mean?

[Lady Renee Buchanan]

Hi Mods - and all you smart people who know about computers - not me by any means.

I have been having trouble - forever - getting on the forum and have posted about it several times.  Today when I got on, it didn't take 7 or 8 tries, but when I have the forum open, up on the address line (the white part that starts http), all the way over on the right, there is a gray box with the letters RSS in white inside it.  It is to the left of the refresh arrow.  We have a MAC.

Now, when I open other tabs and put other websites in there, there is no little box with those letters in it, actually, there is nothing, just white space from the end of the website address to the refresh arrow.

Does anyone know what that means and why it's there?

I haven't been able to get on the forum for the past 2 days and finally got on tonight.  Thanks.

[renfairephotog]

It's like a subscription to a blog or forum.   Similar to the Active topics option from the old forum.


You should see RSS button next to the name of each forum.  You should see an orange icon with the rss logo on it.


page I get when I click rss

http://www.renaissancefestival.com/forums/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml


(most commonly expanded as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.[2] An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed",[3] or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(protocol)

[Lady Renee Buchanan]

Thanks rff.  Yesterday and today the forum opened much easier for me.  It usually never has for about the past 2 or 3 months, usually 8-9 tries, always getting the message "database has gone away."  But I've never seen the RSS in the box before, so maybe the lack of it had something to do with me not being able to get on.