Aquarionics

Thursday 26th August 2004

Atom Comments

Looking up your hostname...
Got your hostname.
Welcome to the Internet Relay Network Aquarion
Your host is excalibur.esper.net running tiamat-1.0(04).ylist.hfix via dircproxy 1.0.5
This proxy has been running since Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:41:55 +0100
nickserv
identify ****
Aquarion sets mode +i Aquarion
Now talking on #eddings
Topic for #eddings is: 'I am A PRODUSER.'
Topic for #eddings set by itagne at Wed Aug 25 08:50:42 2004
Mandy
[10:29] yeah
Mandy
[10:29] occasionally I'll log into the server via the website and delete the crap manually
Senji [10:41] continues to think that feeds should include magic information on how to comment on them, rather than you having to go to the actual entry's page to comment.
Mandy
[10:46] it would be useful, yes
gilmae
[10:46] I'm betting taht will be ATom's Killer Feature
-NickServ-
Password accepted - you are now recognized.
(You Connected)
Aquarion
Er, no. I think that's a really sucky idea
gilmae
almost everything required to do it already exists in Atom, and the last stephas been mooted
gilmae
why?
Aquarion
Mostly because it dictates what I store (and can store) about a person
Senji
Aquarion - why?
Senji
Aquarion - the feature I want is basically a URL.
Aquarion
That already exists in RSS.
gilmae
what else would you demand of the user?
Aquarion
It's what the <comments />element is for.
Senji
<comments />-- no comments? :)
Senji
So it does... :)
Aquarion
gilmae, For any Epistula entry, I store various things from the location from where I posted it, date, time. I could include mood, current music playing, a whole host of things.
gilmae
for comments?
Aquarion
I could also do that with comments
gilmae
you could
Senji
Aquarion's comments have lots of tickyboxes.
Aquarion
The point is that any standardised comments interface wouldn't let me.
Aquarion
And there's that too. It's why any given API cannot do everything, and the Atom API won't ever work fully for all weblogs
gilmae
The comments over Atom would just be a way for commenting for people who don't want to go to your site though, in the same way that the feed is for people to read your posts without going there
gilmae
people who want the frilly bits are going to read the site, and comment there
Aquarion
They can fuck off. If they can't be bothered to go to my site, I don't need their opinion.
Senji also wishes that people wouldn't use javascript popups for comment interfaces...
gilmae
It's been al ong time since *you* were on dial up, eh, Aqn
gilmae
frankly, when I was on dialup, I didn't have the time to sit around for people's designs to load up
Senji
gil - people's designs were too heavyweight then :-P
gilmae
I wanted to read what they said, not see the same design I saw yesterday
Aquarion
Because if it's infinatly extendable, then no one client will support everything, and if it isn't, then I can't store everything I want.
gilmae
obviously, Aqn excepted cause he changes his header image often :- )
Aquarion
gilmae: It's not the design. It's the validation, the optional info (And different sites having different optional bits)
Mandy
Senji - I used to have javascript popups, but then I changed to a better blogging system. :-p
gilmae
Senji, I read about two dozen feeds daily, about another three dozen weekly...even light designs start to add up over that 56K link
Aquarion has about 180 RSS feeds he checks at the moment
gilmae
Aqn: validation? you can still do that over Atom
Aquarion
But I tend not to read them in the aggregator. If I want to read them, I go to the site they came from.
Aquarion
gilmae: Last I saw it, all atom's validation was post effect. I can't say "these you need", and I still can't include my tickyboxes
gilmae shrugs...behaviour differs obviously
Aquarion
I really don't like the homogeneousness that reading everything though a aggregator (or a f/list, for that matter) dictates
Aquarion
I spend a while with my site making it look readable, and having it parsed though a sucky interface negates that
gilmae
don't get me wrong, I'm really trying not to be personal, but that is so arrogant
Aquarion
Yes
gilmae
its a pretty short step to only allowing people to email you if they do it through the client you give them
Aquarion
I'd disagree with that.
Aquarion
My biggest problem with the comment-by-atom thing, and the reason why nothing I will ever write will use it, is that it's an gaping hole with a large sign pointing into it saying "Free google-rank! Point your spambot here!"
gilmae
the only possible response I can give to that is awful, cause it is "It will all be better in the future"ism
Aquarion
When we have jetpacks and a base on the moon, I shall possibly rethink my position
gilmae
but the spec is pretty raw, and I just can't see it going through without the ability to return reponse codes to indicate that an entry doesn't validate, nor can I see it going through without allowing the author to close off comments, either permenantly or on a spam by spam basis
Aquarion
Yes, but that just means we have to run spamassassin on all our comments
Aquarion
And I'd rather not have another pile of "possibly spam" to sort though every week
gilmae
I can't see why something like mt-blacklist can't be used for Atom comments
Aquarion
Me neither, but I don't see blocking spam as preferable to having the hole in the first place
Aquarion considers pasting this conversation into an entry
gilmae
actually, that's very well done, Aqn
gilmae
you just came up with The Perfect Reason for people to write their own blogging engines
gilmae
"Well, I wrote my own so that my commenting system isn't Movable Type's"
Aquarion
Yeah, it's a side benefit :-)
(Slightly later)
gilmae
shall i make a Perfect World statement? :- )
Aquarion
You can, I might even append it to the entry I just posted :-)
gilmae
In A Perfect World, and I accept that this is the same world as the one with Mr Fusion-powered-DeLoreans, you (Aqn) would be able to publish your schema/DTD/whatever of your commenting-frilly-bits, and the Atom client would be able to use discovery to see that you support this functionality and the schema would tell it how to support it
Aquarion
That is indeed a perfect world
Aquarion
Actually X-Forms would solve some of that.
Aquarion
Include an X-Form for the comment - which has validation information - for each entry
Aquarion
And, while we're at it, I want a pony ana castle.

Those who spoke on this:

gravatar image

gilmae:

2004-08-26 09:49 26 mins after the Original Article

You’ve got to have dreams

Comment Link

gravatar image

emma:

2004-08-26 10:08 45 mins after the Original Article

I totally agree with you. I want people to visit my site as well. I spend a lot of time working on it, changing the layout every now and then.

I post almost everything on my LJ as well though, because I it’s a) easy to do with wBloggar supporting LJ and my weblog supporting the blogger API b) because that’s where the most feedback comes from.

It it not A Perfect World :(

Comment Link

gravatar image

Peter:

2004-08-26 10:18 55 mins after the Original Article

>Aquarion
>I spend a while with my site making it look
>readable, and having it parsed though a sucky
>interface negates that

“I spend a while getting the fonts and colours in my emails just right, and telling me to send in plain text negates that”

Comment Link

gravatar image

Aquarion:

2004-08-26 10:42 23 mins after Peter

Your point is well made, but misses the point I was trying to make.

LJ & Bloglines – for example – fuck around with the HTML. In fact, LJ strips it, and only displays tiny bits. Bloglines applies its own stylesheet. People reading the above in Bloglines would find it more difficult, because it uses a definition list and Aquarionics’ stylesheet to make it readable as a coversation (This will work better when I fix the stylesheet a bit more, but I don’t have time right now, hense the direct paste rather than detailed essay). I want people to see it in the most readable way, and the most readable way for this journal will not be the same for every other journal in existance. There is no such thing as a Perfect Design for every journal or weblog, we can just make it the best we can for the content we write.

Also – and this is also what I mean by having the comment-data inline – You cannot – and should never – autogenerate forms. Never not ever. After some consideration, the layout of the commenting form for this site is (I think) fairly logical (I rarely get mis-directed comments anymore). Even if ATOM-Comment did allow me to say “show these check-boxen” (for the email) or “this is a location combo box” or whatever, I’ve no control over the logic and flow of the form. It would be autogenerated, and that’s Not Good.

Comment Link


Nicholas 'Aquarion' Avenell is a web developer in London, you can find out more about him or how to get in touch.

There are more Articles, Projects, Journal Entries, Photographs and things that defy description here, too.

If you're looking for something specific, there are Calendar & Category -based lists of everything.

And if you want to follow stuff that appears here, try a Syndication Feed, or the generic Feed of everything.


Aquarion's last Twitter was: [updating]
Twitter last updated


More Journal:

[RSS Icon]
[ESF Icon]
[CDF Icon]

That which is relevant:


Explain Ads
© 2000 to 2008 inclusive Nicholas Avenell
All comments are the property of their creators, published with permission
(Unless otherwise indicated, the opinions and sentiments expressed on this site are those of the author and not of any organisation of which he is an affiliate, including his employer. Caveat Lector, E&OE. sigh)
0.539 seconds, 25 queries, 2.68Mb on Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:22:00 +0000
Generated by Epistula Version 2.0.3