Subject: atom:author clarification

From: Justin Fletcher <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 19:14:22 +0100 (BST)

Hiya,

I'm trying to understand the intention of the draft, together with some of
the comments posted here recently. I've only been looking at Atom for a
couple of days so I may be misunderstanding.

As I understand it, the intention is that atom:author within atom:feed
applies to all child atom:entry elements; that is, the value is inherited.
This being the case I have a dilemma with a feed I would like to aggregate
from others.

If I collect the atom:entry elements from those feeds and include them
in another feed that I produce, there is no place for my name to appear
within the new feed. That is, I am not the author of the entries so I
cannot appear as the atom:author of any atom:entry. And if the intention
is that the atom:author within atom:feed be inherited then I cannot place
my name there.

The only other element that seems appropriate is the atom:generator
element, however it is implied that this is the tool used to generate
it ('the agent used'), rather than the person whose responsibility the
feed is. In this case I am not looking for any particular 'advertisement'
of name, but a means whereby a reader can examine the feed and know who
is responsible (to blame) for it.

Is there a suitable place for identifying the feed's author without
affecting the entries themselves ? Is the atom:feed/atom:author a suitable
place for this ?

-- 
Gerph <http://gerph.org/>
... And I'm lonely here inside of me.

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From: Eric Scheid <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 09:13:03 +1000

> This being the case I have a dilemma with a feed I would like to aggregate

The intention has long been that. Text explaining that inheritance has
slipped from the spec, and is currently up for discussion.

> affecting the entries themselves ? Is the atom:feed/atom:author a suitable

Yes. If you are copying the entries from another feed you could also look at
the atom:source element.

e.

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From: Justin Fletcher <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 00:23:01 +0100 (BST)

> Yes. If you are copying the entries from another feed you could also look at

Ah yes; quite correct and quite clearly stated in the draft. Thanks for
pointing that out, sorry for redundant question :-)

-- 
Gerph <http://gerph.org/>
... I'm not just deaf and dumb; staring at the sun.

---

From: Eric Scheid <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 09:35:16 +1000

> pointing that out, sorry for redundant question :-)

No, don't be sorry. We all know way too much about the spec text, getting
outsiders to interpret what we've written is very important for feedback.

Tim/Paul/Others: is there any process or such where we could take the time
to get clueful outsiders to read over the spec and relate to us which parts
are confusing. Ideally this should happen once we've run out of issues to
distract us.

e.

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From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 17:00:28 -0700

>are confusing. Ideally this should happen once we've run out of issues to

That was the IETF-wide last call, last month. The announcement was 
made on the IETF-Announce mailing list, and brought in a few folks. 
In addition, Tim and I pestered a number of people we know who we 
thought might not be following the document and asked them to look in.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium