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Welcome to the Internet Relay Network Aquarion

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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

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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 😛

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.