RIP and directly connected routes

I'm studying RIP and have a really hard time understanding the rationals behind to automatically pulling directly connected routes. If I connect 4 RIP routers in a circle and neither is advertising it's connected routes, it's going to be very quiet ... Please help me understand :-) Secondly, I use 'protocol direct' to have these connected routes pulled from kernel tables to RIP and advertised. Is that the right way to do it ? Lastly, these 'protocol direct' routes override the split horizon rule. Is there a way to prevent an interface to multicast its own subnet ? Thanks, I 'm just discovering BIRD, I may be asking clumsy questions ;-)