The Life and Times of the Watters Family

Comments

1. <author>’s purpose is to identify the email address of the author.

   <atom:author>’s purpose is to identify the email address, the web address and the name of the author. <atom:author> as you point out is richer and therefor has a broader purpose. Not the same purpose.

   <dc:date> and <pubDate> are identical in purpose. They identify a marker in time. Period. Exact same purpose.

   Using <atom:author> is somewhat funky, but not a concern worthy of an outcry. Using it solely to identify an email address would be really funky and worthy of an outcry.

   <atom:author>
   <atom:email>me@me.com</atom:email>
   </atom:author>

   comment by Randy Charles Morin on 2004-06-23 @ 5:38 am

2. Ah, all my elements got killed. You need a preview. Try to guess what I wrote, might be fun :) My point is obvious. atom:author and author do not have the same purpose. dc:date and pubDate do. Using atom:author to identify solely an email address would be funky. Using it to identify an author’s name and Web address is not.

   comment by Randy Charles Morin on 2004-06-23 @ 5:41 am

3. Howdy, Cameron. The example was partially in response to several people who’d asked me in recent weeks about how to indicate authorship without giving away the author’s email address. Following the letter of the law, RSS author elements should contain email addresses. I’ve seen people use the author’s display name instead, but in any case Atom’s Person construct has a special place for exactly this purpose. But IMO, you’re right, this is still a little funky. Both choices are. Choose your funk.

   But a little funkiness can be good when it serves a purpose. I wanted to show people that there are fairly lightweight ways to benefit from Atom’s hindsight. Embedding Atom means a publisher doesn’t have to point their users to a new feed, or manage multiple feed files, or learn the entire format all at once.

   comment by Andrew Grumet on 2004-06-23 @ 5:50 am

4. Randy,

   1) You’re probably right about the preview thing. I’ll fix that. I’ll also see about fixing your comment.

   2) While the RSS 2.0 spec indicates that the author’s e-mail address is the minimal means for identifying the author, the general purpose is the same.

   3) Dave’s definition of “funky” didn’t include language to make it exclusive to <dc:date>.

   Andrew,

   Thanks for the explanation. I agree that “funkiness” can serve a purpose. The difference here is that I’ve always thought that. It seems the RSS insiders have only recently agreed that this might be the case.

   Shouldn’t developers and users, not Dave Winer, get to decide whether or not using a namespace as an alternative for a core element “serves a purpose”?

   I’d like to imagine a world in which the recent clarifications to RSS 2.0 had been made when they were initially asked for and there had been no “funkiness” campaign. In that world, this whole ATOM/RSS issue would’ve never come up. Sadly, it seems as though the ATOM project was required to get the RSS Powers That Be ™ into motion.

   comment by Cameron Watters on 2004-06-23 @ 8:05 am

5. Hi Cameron,

   I agree with some but not all of your previous comment (marked 8:05am).

   From what I remember, the discussion was about two sets of design ideas, each advanced by a numerically small but influential party. I don’t recall this being a case of “the developers and users” vs. Dave Winer. Was it?

   I do yearn for a world where we can efficiently reach a shared understanding and not have to spend time attacking and defending one another.

   comment by Andrew Grumet on 2004-06-23 @ 10:35 am

6. Andrew,

   The individuals that the “funky” RSS campaign targeted included both developers (SixApart/MovableType) and users (anyone actually publishing feeds using <dc:date> in place of <pubDate>). No, it wasn’t Dave vs. ALL users & developers. I never meant to give that impression.

   My point (in that comment) was (and is) that “funkiness” was needless and inappropriate on its face. The point of the original post is that Dave’s take on what is and isn’t “funky” appears to depend very much on who is perpetrating the “funkiness”. If it is a Userland competitor (SixApart) or a personal critic (Mark Pilgrim, et al), it is bad. If it’s a pal and an established RSS 2.0 advocate, it’s O.K.

   If that is true, it would appear to confirm the illegitimacy of the whole “funky” RSS FUD campaign, thus calling into question Dave’s credibility when it comes to his opinions on syndication issues, regardless of his contribution technically. It becomes reasonable to believe that it is as much of a religious war to him as a technical one.

   I don’t know Dave personally. I’m sure he’s a great guy. However, because of his influence in the syndication space, evaluating his technical objectivity and credibility is very important to anyone following syndication technology.

   comment by Cameron Watters on 2004-06-23 @ 11:17 am

7. Did Dave say my feed wasn’t funky? Actually I think Dave would agree with me above when I said that the feed was a little funky. He pointed to it, yes, but to me the reasons were entirely rational and consistent. Let me explain.

   Would you say that it’s fair and unsurprising to say that Dave’s an advocate for RSS and the ideas that it embodies? And that it’s not a moral failing, but rather rational, for him to act in what he sees as RSS’ best interests?

   One of the big ideas in RSS is that it was pleasing to look at. I think a lot of people would agree with that goal, and choose non-namespaced elements over namespaced ones whenever possible. So the funkiness campaign was about trying to preserve that attractiveness. Entirely rational imo.

   And I don’t think Userland had anything to do with it. Suppose you ask the question, where are all these feeds with namespaces coming from? There were two standouts. Six Apart was and is responsible for quite a lot of the feeds out there because they distribute a free and popular product. If you wanted fewer namespaced feeds out there, Six Apart was a good place to start. The second is the public validator site, which I’m pretty sure was — and I don’t remember all the details — encouraging folks to use the dc elements. Again, a rational place to go.

   Now, consider his link to my example. In this case I was trying to draw the attention of friends and colleagues that had seen that Atom supports use cases that RSS doesn’t. Is Atom their only alternative if they want to list author names but not email addresses? Certainly not, and I wanted to show that. In other words, I was trying show RSS’ strengths. I was advocating for RSS. For Dave to point to that was entirely rational.

   comment by Andrew Grumet on 2004-06-23 @ 11:57 am

8. There’s another point that needs to be made here. I don’t think syndication became real by accident. I think it took a lot of hard work. The technology had to be developed, promoted, used. Specs had to be written and competitors allowed to enter the market, so that there could be a market. Data formats had to coalesce so that the little guys could compete on features instead of on compatibility.

   At the least I think we can say that Dave’s played a large role in making syndication happen. I’ve actually said this to Dave in person: “Dave, thank you for RSS”. That’s how much enjoyment I get out of writing applications for this space.

   comment by Andrew Grumet on 2004-06-23 @ 12:09 pm

9. Sure, it’s perfectly understandable that Dave is an advocate for RSS. Your answers merely confirm my contention that Dave’s definition of “right and proper” is not necessarily what is technically most advantageous or objectively best in a given situation, but instead is what is best for RSS.

   While this is an understandable position, I think that it places Dave’s opinions and thoughts into a context different from the one in which he would like others to perceive them.

   Additionally, using “funky” as a subjective pejorative instead of simply discussing or debating the merits of the issue is the larger problem here, especially for someone (Dave, not you) who gets so upset by people throwing criticism his way. Dave traffics in FUD when it suits his cause and speaks out against it as an evil practice the rest of the time.

   I do not question that Dave has played an important role in the success of RSS and syndication in general. While the specific nature of that role will likely be debated by others for some time, I agree with your comments that Dave is to be both thanked and commended for the positive contributions he has made.

   At the same time, I do not believe that substantial positive contribution absolves anyone of their responsibility for their negative contributions. To view either one alone, to the exclusion of the other, would be both ignorant and irresponsible. It is left to each of us to assign the appropriate importance to each contribution and evaluate an individual’s (in this case Dave’s) opinions in the proper context.

   I continue to believe that it is proper to question and poke at anything that seems amiss. I try to do it honestly and fairly, without excessive mirth. My nature is to be a bit sarcastic, but I try not to be mean. I’m always quick to apologize and do my best to correct my mistakes when I do cross that line.

   comment by Cameron Watters on 2004-06-23 @ 12:37 pm

10. Cameron, there’s nothing wrong with what Andrew has done, and I encouraged him to do it, because one of the weak areas of RSS 0.91 and 2.0 is its use of email addresses to identify people.

    There’s nothing funky about using the Atom 0.3 element in place of webMaster, managingEditor and author, if you’re using it to avoid including email addresses in your feed, because in that role it’s doing something you can’t do with the existing core element.

    And you’re absolutely wrong, dammit, about what the funky thing was about. Do you know about Postel’s Law, be conservative in what you send? That’s the point of saying something is funky. I wanted RSS to coalesce instead of flying apart.

    Pretty simple I can’t understand why something so simple evades so many people who should be smart enough to figure it out without having their hand held.

    comment by Dave Winer on 2004-06-23 @ 2:04 pm

11. Dave, I don’t believe there is anything wrong with what Andrew has done. More power to you for supporting it, as I do (and indicated initially).

    I understand Postel’s Law. I understand the merits of your position now as I understood them back then. However, none of that justifies attempting to achieve your goal by stomping on other people. Again, based on your recent posts on scripting.com, I would think that was something to which you could relate.

    Your lack of patience then and now, along with your recurring need to reduce the discussion to expletives and insults, despite your fervent protest when you are the recipient of the same, are seem to be near the root of the issues raised here. You afford those of us with the gall to question you or your motives much the same courtesy afforded to you by those who spitefully crap all over you and everything you try to do. I am not one of those. Admittedly, I find myself skeptical of your motives and bias in certain discussions, but I work very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt as often as possible.

    This conversation had proceeded quite civilly, despite disagreement, until you got here. Maybe that is significant; maybe it isn’t.

    And finally, I hope the irony isn’t lost on anyone:

    “That’s the point of saying something is funky. I wanted RSS to coalesce instead of flying apart.”

    Sadly, what may actually happen as a result (jury’s still out) seems much closer to what you were trying to avoid.

    comment by Cameron Watters on 2004-06-23 @ 3:10 pm

12. Hey, you should get a job as a school marm, you’d be perfect for it.

    comment by Dave Winer on 2004-06-23 @ 5:47 pm