Subject:
|
Re: RSS vs. Atom (was: Attention All RSS Geeks)
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.publish
|
Date:
|
Sun, 29 Aug 2004 06:22:27 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
4565 times
|
| |
|
|
In lugnet.publish, René Hoffmeister wrote:
> In lugnet.publish, Dan Boger wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:20:46PM +0000, Kelly McKiernan wrote:
> > > That's a good question. I do think most feeds will end up being served
> > > from a centralized server, but that's not an absolute necessity. RSS
> > > links can be distributed, as in peer-to-peer networking, but it would
> > > be nice to have a centralized place. Probably the same server space as
> > > the DTD. It may end up being LEGOFan.org or something else, that's
> > > really TBD.
> >
> > Why have a centralized server? I'd expect there be a list of feeds
> > someplace, and maybe mirroring of feeds... But it would make a lot of
> > sense to have each feed hosted off the service that generates it.
> > Unless LENNI wants to support remote publishing?
[SNIP]
> So I suggest, that there should be at least one central place where all news are
> available, completely unfiltered.
I agree, one centralized area would be an excellent resource, one which LENNI
could accomplish easily, I believe. That's a big part of why I think something
like this should be created.
Let me expand my assumptions on the project a bit, and maybe help define the
scope a bit more, which may answer your concerns better:
To me, LENNI is basically two things: an XML specification, and some tools to
help people implement the spec. It's a foundation on which we (or anyone) could
build far more than just the relatively modest news and event exchange I'm
proposing we begin with.
Once a spec and features are finalized, software developers (right now myself,
Jake, and Dan) are planning on creating tools for content creators and content
consumers. Really, the scope of that is up to the individual. For myself, I plan
on creating a PHP-based XML generator that is very easy for non-technical
webmasters to install and use. That helps people who are on PHP-enabled web
servers to generate LENNI-enhanced XML and keep it updated. I also plan on
writing one or two web-based aggregators to help content consumers (basically
everybody else) find and customize what they want to see.
That last part sounds a lot like what you described.
I think the only difference is, from a technical standpoint, no centralized
server is required once the idea and spec are "seeded" far enough. There's no
single point of failure.
HOWEVER, and this is important, it would be foolish NOT to provide as much
information in one place as possible, like you describe. LEGOFan.org or some
other site would work well for that, but I don't want to assume the people
running LEGOFan would jump for joy if they saw me coming down the road with a
truckload of code.
So I believe I'm agreeing with you - a centralized, comprehensive repository for
all LEGO-related feeds (raw or LENNI-enhanced) would be essential from a user
point of view. But by not REQUIRING that everything converge on one particular
site, that frees up the concept to live beyond any single web site or
programming team.
One other thing that I thought of today: the Calendar function, if implemented
correctly, has the potential to take off and become really big in the RSS/Atom
universe. NOBODY has anything like that (to my knowledge), so when thinking
about it, we should be as generic as possible. In fact, I think we should add
one more attribute to the LENNI spec: something like "community" = "LEGO". That
way the base LENNI spec could very easily be used in other areas of interest, by
simply replacing "LEGO" with "STARTREK" or "TRADESHOW" or "COLDFUSION" or what
have you.
But that's just me thinking big. :)
> > > is TBD. All applicable LEGO-related XML feeds would be fair game for
> > > inclusion in any LENNI feed list, enhanced or not.
> >
> > Right. And basically mark the feeds as "unenhanced", and maybe assign
> > them some default properties.
>
> But assigning default properties can only be done by every indiviual user /
> aggregator depending on their own intention where and how to use this particular
> RSS-item!? And to keep the idea of the "central aggregator", who shall decide
> what properties are appropriate?
Good question. Let's try to make sure the guidelines are clear. You're right,
the content is all subject to the will of whoever creates it. The spec is only a
suggestion. But, if a particular content provider continually mismanages their
data, nobody will read that particular feed anyway, so the problem is kind of
self-correcting.
> Of course, in general I have to agree that LEGO-related RSS feeds have to be
> accepted even if they are in no way LENNI-enhanced. LEGO news is LEGO news.
Exactly.
> > For country, we can just use the standard two letter abbriviations. I'd
> > expect to have region as a sub-category to country... A state, a
> > province, even maybe a city? Again, some existing standard would
> > be useful.
>
> Good idea (sub category). As for abbreviations, are their standard ones even for
> local areas and for cities? If yes, where can I research them, I'm interested in
> abbreviations for the english terms of european geographical names. Any help or
> link is really appreciated.
That would be really helpful, if you could research something like that. The
only geographic "standard" abbreviations I know about are the "en-us" type of
language codes, which aren't exactly what we're looking for. There may be a W3C
document out there that lists them somewhere, but I don't know where - or even
if it exists.
> My suggestion: Let's keep out "privat" and "rumour", but use
> * "Legoland", "Lego Direct", "Shop@Home", "LEGO S&E"
> * plus "Peeron administration", "LUGNET administration", "Classic-Castle
> administration" etc., all greater sites that could provide trustful information.
> * plus the empty field
Wouldn't the feed source tell you pretty much the same thing?
> > > > * "age" - [S] - i.e. AFOLs, Kids etc. or 3+, 4+, 5+ etc. - who could
> > > > be interested in that particular news
>
> The more I'm thinking about it, the more I tend towards "AFOL/KFOL/FOL". But at
> the other hand, age ranges or even some single years of age could be useful. For
> example, in Germany, some kinds of competition, contests and winnings and even
> decisions and trades are allowed not until participants have a specific age. It
> would be useful for site owners to filter out news that doesn't match such local
> restrictions.
Good point. It's a balance between ease of use, and greater functionality.
Having three broad categories is simpler to understand, I think, but if you
think there are valid reasons to be more granular, we could go that way
instead. My preference right now is AFOL/KFOL/FOL but that could change.
> > > > * "???" - [S] - i.e. collector, builder, parents, seller, site
> > > > owners etc. what kind of LEGO Fan could be interested in.
> > >
> > > Not sure I completely understand this one.
> >
> > Is this perhaps a type of category? If it's an announcement of a new
> > web service, mark it as "webmasters". If it's a sale, "collector,
> > builder, parents". Not sure if this is redundant or not?
>
> You're right, Dan. I simply can't find an English word for this category.
> I'm not thinking it's redundant, i.e. just think of an announcement like "New
> web-based LENNI-enhanced aggregator available by Dan Boger". This would affect
> "site owners" only (although you would earn a lot of respect from the whole
> community of course :-)
I see what you're getting at... although it could be difficult adding enough
categories to that without it becoming confusing. I think the use of "Themes"
would cover this, if it's comprehensive. For example, Larry's suggestion of a
theme for "Buy/Sell/Market Oriented" would interest collectors and parents, and
so on. Maybe we should compile a list of themes and see if any potential
audiences like you describe would be left out. Frankly, I'd prefer to have to
implement the fewest number of filters possible (so far, age and theme are the
two I concentrate on). If we provide too many options, I think people (both
content providers and content consumers) would get confused.
> BTW: PLMK if I'm interfering too much in this discussion, please see all
> postings as suggestions only!
Please keep posting, René! This is exactly what I was hoping to read when I
started the thread.
- Kelly
|
|
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: RSS vs. Atom (was: Attention All RSS Geeks)
|
| (...) Hm. I guess there is a misunderstanding somewhere (and I think it's caused by language barriers, sorry, I simply don't know how to translate individual technical descriptions). But I'll try one more time. It would be ridiculous if we couldn't (...) (20 years ago, 26-Aug-04, to lugnet.publish)
|
31 Messages in This Thread:
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
