Feed wfw Namespace no longer valid

[ajwagner777]

Related to this post ​http://wordpress.org/support/topic/rss-feed-wellformedweborg-offline?replies=2

A broken link scan of our website revealed that the link in the feeds to ​http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/ (for the wfw namespace) is invalid. Going to that website reveals that the site has been taken down by the hosting company.

I found 2 references to that namespace in /wp-includes/feed-rss2.php and /wp-admin/includes/export.php and removed them, and the instances to the wfw namespace within the feed content. This fixed my issue.

This begs the larger question: should this be removed/replaced in the core if the site that references the namespace is no longer available?

Verified here: ​http://ww2.aaronwagner.net/feed/

[nacin]

It's a shame that wellformedweb.org is down, but a namespace URL does not need to resolve. It may look like a URL, but it is just a unique identifier of the namespace. A validating parser would benefit from URL resolution, but that's it.

Not sure why we have wfw referenced in the export, as it is only used in feed-rss2.php for wfw:commentRss. Removing the namespace reference there will result in invalid XML.

[solarissmoke]

A broken link scan of our website revealed that the link in the feeds to ​http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/ (for the wfw namespace) is invalid. Going to that website reveals that the site has been taken down by the hosting company.

I think the problem is that your link checker is trying to resolve/visit XML namespace URIs, which it shouldn't?

Patch removes the wfw namespace from the export file (guessing it was copied over by mistake), although presumably there is no harm in leaving it there either.

[solarissmoke]

Remove unused wfw namespace from export xml

[wonderboymusic]

Marked close 2 years ago.

[SergeyBiryukov]

#47143 was marked as a duplicate.

[ramon fincken]

@wonderboymusic this is still present and yes still a 404, why can't we delete this line?

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to ramon fincken:

this is still present and yes still a 404, why can't we delete this line?

Just to clarify, is it about the instance in wp-includes/feed-rss2.php or wp-admin/includes/export.php? Removing the former would result in invalid XML, as it's used for wfw:commentRss.

Is there an actual problem solved by removing this line? As explained in comment:1, a namespace URL does not need to resolve. It may look like a URL, but it is just a unique identifier of the namespace.

[ramon fincken]

hmm @SergeyBiryukov I guess you are right.

However .. Can't we point it to something that DOES produce some sensible output for humans?