Added 2015-07-02 23:18:02 +0000 UTC
Just between you and me... I hesitate to bring this up because we're still a damn long ways from fruition, but Heath and I have employed the services of a new web developer to build us an updated site for the show. Included in the new site will be a password protected RSS feed for our Patrons; which will allow you to upload extended episodes and bonus content on your normal podcast software. Like I said, we're in the earliest stages of development now, and it could be the end of the year before everything's online, so I'm probably mentioning this way too early, but I want to make sure everyone knows that I hear the complaints about Patreon's functionality and we're working to get around it. Who knows? Maybe Patreon will have a decent mobile app between now and then, but I'm not gonna rely on it. I'll be sharing what I can of the development process here in an effort to keep everyone posted, but for what it's worth, the guy doing our website is the same guy that did the Skepticrat logo, he does this for a living, and he's been a close friend for over a decade; so I have every reason to believe that the new website will (eventually) kick ass. Thanks for being so patient. We know that the system here is a long ways from optimal and it means a lot to us that you're willing to suffer through it to support us.
Comments
Thanks. I am also an Android user and corroborate Trevor. Dropbox is much better but RSS would be better still.
Grant Barnes
2015-07-03 21:40:05 +0000 UTCCorrection: the metadata is available (ostensibly for search purposes). This is probably fine, but Noah: You may want to not put the dropbox URL in the url or title fields, as they're transmitted in the clear.
Chubby Bunny
2015-07-03 06:22:52 +0000 UTCWhat's worse, on The Scathing Atheist patreon page, the "patron-only" posts are hidden using CSS for non-patrons, rather than simply not being sent across the wire. That seems like an easy fix though. Writing the Patreon admins.
Chubby Bunny
2015-07-03 06:19:09 +0000 UTCSo, ah, I did some investigatory work. Patreon doesn't have a public API per-se, but they do have a user-visible endpoint by which you can download your list of patrons. I created Bash and PHP implementations you can leverage if you'd like to automate the whole "managing the patrons' links" stuff. Bash is just to demonstrate the bare minimum HTTP stuff; PHP is what you'd probably prefer to have as part of your website (and while it's hard in PHP - either this manually-parsed way, or slightly less hard using cURL or HttpRequest, most other languages have an easy time making HTTP requests). You'll probably want to run whatever you do as a cron job on the server, and create tokens/accounts around any new patrons in the list. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/2838575">https://www.patreon.com/posts/2838575</a>
Chubby Bunny
2015-07-03 06:10:53 +0000 UTCCrazy but true - the extended editions can be downloaded by anyone, because they're not secured on the Amazon S3 servers. I ran a check on it a while ago, and it turned out to be purely security by obscurity. If anyone wants to confirm this, copy the following links and open then in a browser you're not signed in to patreon with, and you should be able to access the .mp3s. Link to Amazon S3 MP3: <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/patreonf/202e3f1d503417a430bb8b8ec3ea2984.mp3" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://s3.amazonaws.com/patreonf/202e3f1d503417a430bb8b8ec3ea2984.mp3</a> Link to Patreon MP3: <a href="http://www.patreon.com/file?s=104603&h=1208128&i=42193">http://www.patreon.com/file?s=104603&h=1208128&i=42193</a>
Steve Chaloner
2015-07-03 05:45:20 +0000 UTCSweet! Query: can you get Patreon to notify you of new donors, along with an email link (direct, or proxied through Patreon's servers)? Because you might be able to go with a token-validated feed (e.g., <a href="http://scathingatheist.com/patron-feed/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://scathingatheist.com/patron-feed/</a>{long, unique token}), rather than a single password protected feed. Besides one bad donor being able to share away your patron benefits for a dollar, and being unable to disable feeds for former donors, podcast clients have, in my experience, had relatively spotty support for HTTP auth. Besides, a long link is easier to deal with than a link plus username and password. Meanwhile, the implementation would be simpler, since you wouldn't have to deal with the whole 401+WWW-Authenticate->Authorization->200 handshaking. Just "is this token in the set of good tokens? No? Piss off. Yes? Here, have a feed." Database table would be simple: ID|Patreon UID|Valid_Token. Index on all three rows, of course; the first for DB management stuff; the second for terminating old patrons; the third for authenticating patrons.
Chubby Bunny
2015-07-03 03:55:14 +0000 UTCThanks for the info and for going the extra mile. Patreon with their redesign has made it tough to listen to on my android phone the dropbox links have really helped.
Trevoracus
2015-07-03 02:52:52 +0000 UTC"password protected RSS feed for our Patrons" - would be absolutely awesome. please also consider the same for Skepticrat! =)
GloryToUkraine-f@kpootin
2015-07-02 23:46:00 +0000 UTCThanks for keeping us posted! You guys honestly never disappoint.
Dr. Jerb
2015-07-02 23:29:07 +0000 UTCThanks for trying! Much Appreciated.
Rachel Shields
2015-07-02 23:27:43 +0000 UTC
