Lets try this “User input” thing, shall we?
I propose a new format, called the Unified Meta Discovery format. This will be an XML based format with a single purpose – to stop every visitor to my site having to download half a million <link> tags contianing references to metadata.
The proposal is as follows:
In the head of the HTML documents, I propose one last <link> tag, <link rel=”meta” type=”application/xml” title=”UMD” href=”/meta/umd.xml”>
Which contains something like the following:
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<umd> <object> <format>foaf</format> <name>Friend of a Friend file</name> <version>1.0</format> <file>http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/foaf.rdf</file> </object> <object> <name>ESF feed of everything on Aquarionics</name> <format>esf</format> <version>1.0</format> <file>http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/all.esf</file> </object> <object> <name>RSS feed of everything on Aquarionics</name> <format>rss</format> <version>0.94</format> <file>http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/all.rss</file> </object> <object> <name>RSS feed of the Aquarionics Weblog</name> <format>rss</format> <version>0.94</format> <file>http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/weblog.rss</file> </object> </umd> |
Most of it is self explanitory, but…
- format is case-insensitive.
- file is an absolute URL, purely so people can have their synidcation feeds on seperate servers.
- All of this is subject to discussion.
Ideas? Comments? Dupication of effort? Screams of “For gods sake, Aquarion, not another bloody XML format?