I'm not a big fan of this either. The count can never be assured of any
accuracy so if I were to display something like this I end up having to try
and explain to my users why it says there are no replies when in fact they
there are 20.
Also, it forces excessive refreshes on the main feed because every time
someone replies to an entry, the feed for that entry has to be updated even
though it has no real changes. The server could try and do something fancy,
like not changing etags when it's only a reply count update, but then it
just means those counts are going to be even more out of sync with reality.
As you say, if someone really wants to include a comment count they can
always use the slash module. I just don't think it's worth adding to your
proposal without a lot of warnings about the problems and limitations.
Regards
James
James M Snell wrote:
Hmm.. not too sure. It's entirely possible, of course, but I'm not sure
that's it's worthwhile. The slash RSS 1.0 module already has an element
that can be used for this
(http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/).
Byrne Reese wrote:
Any chance this specification could be extended to contain meta data
about the replies? Specifically, how many replies that may exist for a
given entry?
I would love a mechanism to be able to recreate:
--- cut here ---
POST TITLE
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec sit amet
nisl. Morbi pretium ultrices sapien. Mauris pretium ultrices odio. Duis
mauris. Aliquam est.
Posted by: Byrne on Dec 15, 2005 Comments (10)
--- cut here ---
Perhaps?
<link rel="replies" href=".." thr:reply-count="10" />
