RSS2 Feed Enhancement

[lexhair]

I was validating my RSS 2 blog and comments feed and came across this recommendation for adding an atom:link to the RSS2 feeds for better portability.

 http://feedvalidator.org/docs/warning/MissingAtomSelfLink.html

I patched my install to comply. Diff attached. Keep or toss.

This looks a bit confusing to me.

Why should an RSS2 feed have an atom element?

Replying to westi:

This looks a bit confusing to me.

Why should an RSS2 feed have an atom element?

Fair question. I was wondering that myself but here's a link to the Best Practices Profile.  http://www.rssboard.org/rss-profile#namespace-elements-atom

-1 , no sufficiently severe symptom has been demonstrated.

+1. This simple enhancement makes the RSS 2.0 feeds produced by WordPress completely self-describing. The feeds can be cached and distributed over file-sharing networks and as email attachments without losing the origin of the feed.

This is one of those ideas that helps build better feeds. If a site supports Atom this is a way for tools that also support it to find out about it. Does a site "have to" do this, of course not. But does a site have to do feeds either? No, but when templates include feed support by default everyone that uses feeds benefits. I think it's clear we all benefit from feeds. This is a way to increase the value of feeds. Putting it in a default template makes it possible for sites that don't really grasp the value of feeds to add value and audience.

Much like any other metadata, it's only useful when lots of sites make use of it. It's a chicken-and-the-egg sort of situation. No feeds using metadata means tools won't bother either. No tools using it means some sites won't see the value. A circular argument exists and no progress gets made. Put a bit of metadata like this into a feed and suddenly tools start to see info they can use to better assist their users. All the while the site publisher hasn't had to "do anything" other than use the templates and framework.

So is it "necessary"? Perhaps not... but it's a really good idea, one that comes with little or no cost/effort.

This could use a tweak. It won't return the proper self-link on the RSS2 category feed using custom permalinks.

See #5214

markjaquith, westi, and I discussed this with rubys and I think we reached a +1.

Replying to lexhair:

This could use a tweak. It won't return the proper self-link on the RSS2 category feed using custom permalinks.

Indeed.

Marking back as needs-patch - we need to ensure that we get this right.

Replying to westi:

Replying to lexhair:

This could use a tweak. It won't return the proper self-link on the RSS2 category feed using custom permalinks.

Indeed.

Marking back as needs-patch - we need to ensure that we get this right.

I'll leave the diff up. Need to change the bloginfo('rss_url') function in feed-rss2.php to a function that will recognize when a category feed is called. I just don't know enough about the rewrites to develop a new function, if needed.

I meant bloginfo('rss2_url')

wouldn't bloginfo('atom_url') also need fixing?

Replying to rubys:

wouldn't bloginfo('atom_url') also need fixing?

I looked at feed-atom.php and you are correct. As it is in the trunk, it will not return the correct self link for a category feed. That might be a separate, low level defect ticket since it exists rather than this ticket which is an enhancement to RSS2. JMHO.

Replying to lexhair:

Replying to rubys:

wouldn't bloginfo('atom_url') also need fixing?

I looked at feed-atom.php and you are correct. As it is in the trunk, it will not return the correct self link for a category feed. That might be a separate, low level defect ticket since it exists rather than this ticket which is an enhancement to RSS2. JMHO.

Raised as #5238

(In [6278]) Add atom:self link to rss2 feeds per RSS Best Practices Profile. Fixes #5205 props lexhair and rubys.