I’m a big fan of Google Reader. It’s even the first thing I log on to when I go online — even before I open my mail or this site. I do this because I want my Reader to load as quickly as it can so I could start reading the blogs I’m subscribed to that have recently updated. However, every time I encounter a new post with a partial feed text showing up in my reader, I honestly do get a little annoyed, which sort of makes me a little less interested in the post itself.

The partial RSS feed in WordPress is caused when the blogger uses the “more” tag in his or her post. This tag used to have no effect on Feed Readers, but ever since WordPress 2.1 (and higher versions) came to be, the feed functionality changed to only showing the post up until the <!–more–> tag (if such exists in a post).

Jaypee has posted an entry about Full vs Partial RSS Feeds before. He provided a really good list of pros and cons of using either types of RSS feeds, and he went on to ask his readers what their opinions on the subject are. As I’ve said in my comment on his post, I use full feeds for my blog, because I also want to get full feeds from the blogs I’m subscribed to. I am pro Full Feeds! And I really hope more people would be too. I know that the two negative effects of Full RSS Feed are the possible decrease in the number actual site visits and the number of comments being left on my blog. But I really don’t mind. Heck, even the famous Darren Rowse prefers it.

To all WordPress 2.1+ users out there, I hope you consider switching to full feed text. You can do that by installing the Full Feed Text Plugin by cavemonkey. Go on. It’s only a download-upload-and-activate task. It’ll only take, like, 3 minutes!

Unfortunately, Blogger (Blogspot) also adheres to the partial feed text.