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Chat? Feeds?

SE sites have associated chat rooms. This site's main one is RPG General Chat. Check it out!

SE chat supports feeds, which shows up as little ticker pop-ups from time to time.

Since really we want the chat (like every site feature) to be useful to the users, it makes sense to have the users choose which popups show up in chat.

Vote for feeds!

Pretty straightforward procedure, really.

  • Click on the feed links to see what content the feeds will be posting to the site.
  • Vote up feeds you personally want to see.
  • Just ignore the ones you don't want to see.
  • Save downvotes for when you think something is actively annoying rather than just irrelevant to your interests. (I recommend adding a comment if you do this.)

(This is meant to be a less-formal variant of the community ads procedure. Note that moderators/room owners will have to go in and make the changes by hand. There is no magic vote number for now; it's just "play it by ear so that chat has feeds but isn't too full of them." BESW SAYS: Since I'm the chat owner now I'm semi-formalizing it: 4 votes gets you on the ticker, with a lower bar for feeds run by rpg.se citizens.)

Suggest feeds!

If you think there's a feed that should show up in general chat, add it as a new answer here. One feed per answer. Feed suggestions should be pitches telling us why we'd like the feed in our ticker, providing useful information like general focus, update frequency (feeds which update many times a day are not popular with the chat), and particularly interesting examples of posts.

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    \$\begingroup\$ We're never taking meta out, for what are, I hope, obvious reasons. \$\endgroup\$
    – C. Ross
    Jul 23, 2013 at 18:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ Is there a feed for new edits pending? \$\endgroup\$
    – LitheOhm
    Jul 24, 2013 at 0:53

28 Answers 28

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https://rpg.stackexchange.com/feeds

Questions posted to our own RPG.SE (basically required).

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http://ponderingsongames.com/feed/

My own blog, Ponderings on Games. Was primarily about D&D 4e, now moved on to other games. Low volume, vaguely game design perspective.

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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 Content by our own users is, like, the best kind of stuff to put in the feeds, in my opinion. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex P
    Jul 26, 2013 at 3:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ Considering how often we link to a couple of your posts, having it in the feeds would be a benefit to all of us \$\endgroup\$
    – wax eagle
    Jul 29, 2013 at 12:47
14
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The Official WOTC D&D Feed.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Globals/Services/ArticleFeed.aspx

With 5e launching shortly I think it would greatly benefit the site and chat users to have the WOTC feed show up. I know ENWorld's coverage would overlap with this some, but I think their editorial take vs. the more informative approach of the actual Wizard's articles would be enough contrast. Plus, one can never discount the importance of primary sources.

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5
  • \$\begingroup\$ Might want to try this feed instead: wizards.com/rss.asp?x=dnd \$\endgroup\$
    – GMNoob
    Jul 3, 2014 at 10:38
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ This RSS was removed from our ticker due to what has come to be known as The Morningstar Malfunction. It will be re-evaluated at a later date; if Morningstar-free, I'll add the feed back to the ticker. \$\endgroup\$
    – BESW
    Jul 6, 2014 at 8:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ @besw wanna give it a test drive again? \$\endgroup\$ Sep 2, 2014 at 13:33
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @JoshuaAslanSmith Both the current feed links are dead. How about an update? \$\endgroup\$
    – BESW
    Sep 2, 2014 at 13:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ @besw I shall see what I can find. \$\endgroup\$ Sep 2, 2014 at 13:51
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Fantastic Maps is a down-to-earth blog about mapmaking, with a strong fantasy bent. It talks about the mechanics, philosophies, and practices of making fictional maps.

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The official Fate blog on FateRPG.com:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Fate

This blog contains news on Fate developments such as the recent release of Fate Core. Additionally, however, it regularly discusses the workings of the system and provides playing advice to players. For instance:

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    \$\begingroup\$ -1 I think system specific sites are a bad fit and will just turn into popularity-contest voting in this poll... \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk
    Jul 28, 2013 at 23:08
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @mxyzplk I think system specific blogs are fine; the issue is having a decent mix instead of being all D&D or all something else. If one blog has tons of useful lessons for players and GMs, but they're all for D&D since that's what the guy's playing and the lessons aren't so applicable to other games, that's still worthwhile having. Or should we deny it any presence because it happens to be RPG specific? I think not. Unless your objection is simply linking to official blogs, instead of ones that might be discussing this RPG exclusively for now but not necessarily forever? \$\endgroup\$ Jul 29, 2013 at 7:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ I mean that realistically, we're only going to have a reasonably small number of feeds, and ones that are too narrowly focused won't serve the site purpose well. \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk
    Jul 29, 2013 at 15:42
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ I think volume matters more than the amount of feeds we have. A feed that only updates once every month is only generating one event a month. A feed that updates five times a day is generating something like 50-ish events a month (due to how they get collated a bit). \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex P
    Aug 7, 2013 at 16:23
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @mxyzplk AlexP sort of matched my thinking. This blog doesn't update often, and when it does, it delivers useful information for Fate players - the exact same way any other blog would deliver some useful information on any other specific RPG, and the exact same way many individual post on the RPG Bloggers network is still RPG-specific. And these educational posts are really good for Fate players. The result here is that once a month, this would add a useful Fate post to the ticker - isn't that a good thing? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 7, 2013 at 23:38
10
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The Bundle of Holding blog!

The Bundle of Holding is a tabletop RPG version of the videogame Humble Bundle: it promotes small-business RPGs by offering cheap bundle rates for high-quality indie games, and donating proceeds to charities of the creators' choice.

RSS feed: http://beyondthebundle.com/feed/

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I've tentatively upvoted this. We generally don't use our feeds for store promotions, but this is the Bundle of Holding: it's relevant to us, it's good to know what it has on offer, and it is good to be able to support both charity and small businesses. I'd like to see how this goes. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 27, 2014 at 0:31
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I think the universal determinant should be "Is it something the chat wants to see?" In the past the chat has not wanted to see the promotional feeds which have been suggested. Perhaps that doesn't mean the chat doesn't want to see any promotional feeds, just that it's picky. \$\endgroup\$
    – BESW
    Nov 27, 2014 at 0:39
10
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The Alexandrian

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/category/roleplaying-games/feed

An influential blog written with an eye to using analytical theory to develop practical tools for GMing. Especially good for campaign building and adventure building concepts and tools.

The author is critical of various D&D designs without being an edition warrior, and is critical because he's a fan and plays them and has worked hard to figure out how to make them even better at their existing design goals.

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10
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Recent articles from EN World.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/external.php?do=rss&type=newcontent&sectionid=1&days=120&count=10

It's often a news source that provides various official timely announcements.

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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 Best source for news and scoops \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk
    Jul 28, 2013 at 23:08
8
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http://bankuei.wordpress.com/feed/

"Deeper in the Game: From Geekdom to Freedom" blog by Bankuei

This blog is low-volume (I consider that a plus). It includes indie-games content, D&D content, theory and tools (like the "Same Page Tool" that we cite constantly in comments and chat), and content about social-justice issues in fiction and roleplaying.

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8
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The Seven-Sided Die

http://d7.pipemaze.com/blog/

@SevenSidedDie's blog, covering D&D and others.

Example post: Scarcity creates desire

If you want to motivate your players, make things scarce.

I’ve seen this in my own play lately. Players that were hard-core WotC D&D players have suddenly been lusting after treasure and XP in ways that I’ve never seen. The need for creative approaches is bubbling to the surface. A scarcity of hit points is motivating working hard to keep those HP, and the desire to avoid danger. This tension between seeking treasure and yet trying to avoid the inherent danger of the places where treasure is found is, as far as I can tell, the quintessence of a certain kind of old-school play that is immensely enjoyable.

...

But what does satiety accomplish?

Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, if you satisfy the basic game scarcities, players are freed up to start taking those for granted and moving on to satisfying other needs...

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    \$\begingroup\$ This site has been malfunctioning for a long time. If it ever recovers give me a ping. \$\endgroup\$
    – BESW
    Jul 24, 2014 at 21:22
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ Dude! I had no idea this was listed here. I've been tinkering with it to get it working again (it's readable again, but static only so far). This give me more motivation to get the rss/atom stuff coded up, and get the post-writing functionality planned. \$\endgroup\$ Sep 2, 2014 at 6:34
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Botch Blog, a collection of stories of our failures. The idea originated in the chat, and all the contributors (so far) are chat regulars.

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Tweets to Campaign By, BESW's gathering of adventure seeds from the depths of Twitter.

Currently not updating.

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7
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Angry GM

http://theangrygm.com/

http://theangrygm.com/feed/

Angry GM writes on all matters of running games and designing adventures/campaigns. His posts split about half-and-half between truly system-agnostic (usually ) and D&D/PF-centric (usually monster-, dungeon-, encounter-, adventure-, or campaign-design).

He's often cited as either inspiration or further reading on this site, both in posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and in upvoted comments (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12).* More telling, to my mind, is that a lot of different users are linking to him and that usually there's a follow-on comment from OP talking about how helpful the link was.

WARNING: Angry's posts are seasoned with profane and rude language. There's nothing worse than you'll find on prime-time US television, but that's bad enough to warrant some notice, methinks.


* - That's a completely random sampling, by the way, of the six top-voted posts and the six top-voted comments that mention or link Angry GM. All kidding aside, that sample gets you ten unique users, which is my basis for describing him as being broadly-linked. It's not just me, I swear!

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    \$\begingroup\$ Angry is a very smart person, and very good at explaining themselves and their GMing decisions. And notably, the profanity is always “kind”, in that it is used for comedic emphasis and hyperbole, never to belittle or attack others — something that, ironically, shows a very considerate writer. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 18, 2016 at 16:11
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ I used to like Angry's content, but I feel it has gone downhill \$\endgroup\$
    – goodguy5
    Feb 14, 2019 at 16:17
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ I have removed this feed from the ticker after a pattern of posts with belittling and insulting attacks on a variety of groups culminated in defending blatantly racist rhetoric when called out on it. This feed will not be returning unless/until the author makes amends in at least as public a manner. \$\endgroup\$
    – BESW
    May 8, 2020 at 3:14
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RPG Theorist

https://rpgtheorist.wordpress.com/feed/

I've just started a blog. The contents are to be primarily theoretical pieces about RPG construction and its implications, GMing tips, away-from-the-table resources for players and GMs and last but not least, an outlet for my own RPG designs.

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If Magician's blog is getting upvotes, I'll throw mine into the mix too. http://gm.sagotsky.com/?feed=rss2

It's mostly about GMing. Lately I've been spending more time designing a system than playing, so that's where the content has been.

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1
  • \$\begingroup\$ Alex P, That's interesting. TY for the head's up. Site got hacked about a year ago, but I think that had been cleaned up... \$\endgroup\$
    – valadil
    Sep 16, 2013 at 0:59
6
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http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/

"The Walking Mind is Rob Donoghue, co-founder of Evil Hat and erratic RPG writer." A fairly active blog. The author has recently concluded a very in-depth look at 13th Age and Numenera. Well-written, thought-out, and a game designer's perspective is a plus, at least for me.

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6
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Geek Related

http://geek-related.com/

@mxyzplk's blog, covering D&D and other games.

Example post: Rule Zero Over the Years

The allowed scope of DM rulings has absolutely changed over time in D&D. The balance between Dungeon Master’s discretion versus reign of the rules versus player empowerment has always been debated in D&D circles but there’s a clear evolution of thinking across the span of versions. The attitude towards rulings vs. rules in the game shows up

  • directly and explicitly in the rules text
  • implicitly in the text and detectable via textual analysis
  • in the surrounding publications considered semi-canonical (Dragon magazine, nowadays forums and designer blogs), and
  • the culture of gamers surrounding it.

Let’s stick mostly to the first two in the interest of space...

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Ars Ludi/Lame Mage http://arsludi.lamemage.com/

Is an intelligent, well-written blog about RPGs by Microscope creator Ben Robbins. He writes about various experiments he tried, social issues with RPGs, and actual play from the games he's written.

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I'm going to quote this suggestion so all the feed can be found in one place.

I think that added HNQs to the chat feed will be useful information to have now that there is an official way to determine and indicate this with the recent HNQ update.

This will raise awareness of questions as they hit HNQ and alert members of the community that are in the chat to help watch out for any signs that issues are arising and potentially help to mitigate (vote, flag, etc.) any issues that arise.

I think the most helpful way to implement it would be the same way that Oracle is in that the HNQs are posted One-box style in the chat feed as they hit HNQ status (as opposed to putting them in the upper left hand corner feeds).

Some clever people on Big Meta have already come up with HNQ feeds for every stack and I think using that is probably a good option. That post links to a page listing all of the feeds and ours is:

HNQ rpg.stackexchange.com posted by RPG

Does this sound useful to anyone else?

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http://slyflourish.com/

Sly Flourish has started as a D&D 4e blog (hence the name, I'm guessing), but has since moved on to broader topics. Weekly posts, focuses on practical advice.

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Rick Neal's "What's He On About Now?"

http://www.rickneal.ca/

http://www.rickneal.ca/?feed=rss2

Started out as a DFRPG playtest blog, and has some of the best explanations/insights I've ever seen for that system. But he's writing on all sorts of other games too; Apocalypse World recently got a good article. Only posts when he has something to say.

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3
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Fate Looms: A blog about an impending Fate tabletop system.

http://fate-looms.tumblr.com/

Maintained by our own doppelgreener, this blog just started up. It's the dev blog for a Fate online tabletop app which several RPG.SE users are collaborating on.

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3
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Rage: the Dataening - the gaming blog @BESW finally persuaded me to create.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Did you misspell raeg? \$\endgroup\$
    – Miniman
    Sep 2, 2014 at 5:29
3
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Siskoid's Blog of Geekery has an enjoyable RPG tag. For example, in addition to more traditional RPG experience/commentary/review posts, he does the really quite cool Seasons of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space: as part of his "watching and reviewing all of Doctor Who in order, he re-casts each season as an RPG campaign, providing character sheets and summaries of the fictional play.

A feed of just the RPG material is what we would want:
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/RPGs

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2
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The Onyx Path regularly make excellent blog posts about and games which make up the bulk of the content, but it's also the place for other games they own, such as , , , , and .

They have the first look at new developments into all of these games, as well as taking part in open development there so you can impact what goes into games.

The feed.

Excellent examples of why I think this is good blog to feed off of:

[BEAST]HUNGERS

This is a preview of one aspect of Onyx Path's new game Beast: The primordial. It's a teaser to get fans excited, but also an idea of what will be in the game, with the opportunity to discus on the OP forums, which the developers read and may incorporate into the game.

HURT LOCKER OPEN DEV DUMP #2

This is another example of what I think is good quality content form the blog. It's a link to the first draft of merits and templates from the Hurt Locker book, provided in full in a google drive document. They don't call it Open Development for nothing.

PREGNANCY IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS

This is a reworking of content from the Demon: the Descent book Heirs to Hell, aimed at generalising pregnancy to be used in all of their systems. This kind of 'reworked' content is rarer but still good.

They do also advertise when they release new products (from books to shirts) and when there is a sale on. Not sure if that is a plus or a minus.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Whatis it that people don't like about this suggestion? \$\endgroup\$ Apr 23, 2015 at 12:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ As a Onyx/White Wolf fan, I already see the news on the site. The blog is very focused on a game that isn't particularly popular with those in chat. It's not a great fit. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tritium21
    May 2, 2015 at 4:16
1
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/GnomeStew

Gnome Stew, a group blog about GMing. It's system-agnostic but focused on pretty traditional play.

Here's an example from the recent post, More than One Chance to Shine:

First, if a PC only has one chance to shine during a four hour (or more) session then her presence isn’t really necessary, an NPC can cover that base. This is further exacerbated by the fact that if the “spotlight” comes early then the player has little motivation to stay for the rest of the session; if the spotlight comes too late then the player may no longer care. The player needs regular assurances that her presence is useful.

Here's another, from Who Are You Trying to Impress:

Don’t try to impress anyone but your group. Your gaming heroes may love your choice of system, genre, setting, or storyline. But they are not at your table; your group is. Remember who your audience is.

Gnome Stew recently won an Ennie Award for "best website."

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    \$\begingroup\$ I've got some great use out of GnomeStew as a reference site, but when it was in our feed list last year GS cluttered up the ticker with trivialities and reportage that was better covered by other feeds. Even good feeds, if overfrequent, can be bad for a ticker. Can someone reassure me that they've mended their ways? \$\endgroup\$
    – BESW
    Jul 3, 2014 at 1:49
-1
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http://www.dungeonsampdragons.com/bounded-advantage/?feed=rss2

Just started today with a few people here planning to contribute, focused on D&D 5e

Currently the plan is for contributors to write content. For example livecasts from G+, 5e games from roll20, articles about the advantages of advantage, pontifications on modularity, focusing on D&D 5e’s release, rules, balance issues, and character optimization etc

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    \$\begingroup\$ “Server not found” (2016-07-18). \$\endgroup\$ Jul 18, 2016 at 16:13
-4
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The RPG Bloggers network, consisting of hundreds of RPG bloggers blogging about everything RPG - reviews, session summaries, plot seeds, interviews, random musings, etc. for various and all RPGs.

Feedburner feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/feedburner/VKtY

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    \$\begingroup\$ Honestly, I'd -1 this if I could. It's high-traffic and a lot of that traffic is promotional. Seems more effective to add individual bloggers. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex P
    Jul 23, 2013 at 19:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ +1, it has a large number of good posters; the point is to have something on here that has a good crossrepresentation of the RPG landscape instead of cherrypicking game systems or highly specific subtopics, IMO. \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk
    Jul 28, 2013 at 23:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ @mxyzplk Could you modify this answer to add a few links to highlight some of those good posts? I think right now one of the reasons it's not getting votes is that it's hard to figure out exactly what you're getting just by looking at the whole feed. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex P
    Jul 29, 2013 at 15:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ I don't understand the confusion. Go to rpgbloggers.com and look at the front page; currently there's everything from setting accessibility (alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2013-07-29_Setting_Introductions) to Kobold Quarterly interviews (rpgbloggers.com) to SR5 stuff to reviews of Numenera to session summaries... What is your problem with it exactly? It's a huge cross-section of people blogging about RPGs in all their aspects. \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk
    Jul 29, 2013 at 15:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ -1 Currently we've gotten the benefit of a small number of feeds from quality bloggers we've specifically cultivated. Not having the RPG Blogger's network has been a good, refreshing thing. Hundreds of bloggers is definitely not needed or a good thing - unless we pick them out. (Quality is better than quantity, and less noise is good.) \$\endgroup\$ Jul 1, 2014 at 5:40

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