Subject: Auto-Discovery and requiring rel="alternate"

From: fantasai <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 13:19:30 -0500

I did a quick search on the archives here and didn't find any
postings on the matter. I don't believe the auto-discovery spec
should be requiring rel="alternate" on all auto-discovery links
because it is not always the appropriate link type.

http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/weblog/2004/linking-feeds/

~fantasai

---

From: Asbjørn Ulsberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 04:04:01 +0100

> because it is not always the appropriate link type.

If I understand you correctly, the paces PaceOptionalAlternateLink[1]  
and/or PaceContentOrLink[2] will take care of this in a future draft.

____
[1] <url: http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceOptionalAlternateLink>
[2] <url: http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceContentOrLink>

-- 
Asbjørn Ulsberg     -=|=-    http://virtuelvis.com/quark/
«He's a loathsome offensive brute, yet I can't look away»

---

From: Eric Scheid <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:53:45 +1100

> http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/weblog/2004/linking-feeds/

Are you referring to to linking from a html page to an atom feed, or vice
versa?

For the case of html page --> feed, I too think "alternate" can be a
misnomer. For the main blog page which shows the latest set of entries and
is regularly updated with new entries, one appropriate relationship is
indeed "alternate". However, for a given entry html page, the "alternate"
would be an atom document containing that entry, not some other resource
which as time marches on is less likely to contain that entry.

I would suggest @rel="feed" to refer to the "Feed Resource" (per Mark
Nottingham's definitions), and optionally including "alternate" (space
delimited) if linking to the Feed Resource from the regularly updated recent
posts html page.

Thus, there might be this on the "recent posts" html page...

    <link rel="feed alternate"
      href="/atom/feed/uri"
      type="application/atom+xml"
      title="Feed Title">

... and this on an individual post page:

    <link rel="feed"
      href="/atom/feed/uri"
      type="application/atom+xml"
      title="Feed Title">

... and possibly also this on that same individual html post page:

    <link rel="alternate"
      href="/atom/archive/2004/11/22/entry00345.atom"
      type="application/atom+xml"
      title="Entry Title">

where the @href references an Atom Document where the root element is
<atom:entry>.

e.

---

From: fantasai <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 02:03:32 -0500

> Are you referring to to linking from a html page to an atom feed, or vice

The former.

> which as time marches on is less likely to contain that entry.

My point was more that there are pages out there that link to a feed
that is an alternate for /another/ page, and therefore the rel="alternate"
semantic does not apply to that link. (i.e. there's nothing wrong with
linking to the feed, but linking to it as an "alternate" is wrong.)

> delimited) if linking to the Feed Resource from the regularly updated recent

Having rel="feed" would solve the problem of abusing the protocol segment
of a URI to flag a link as pointing to a feed. However, I'm not sure that
it's really a link type -- it seems more to be metadata on the content type
than anything else.

Also, what is Mark Nottingham's definition of "Feed Resource"?
(Searching Google for "feed resource" nottingham brings up nothing relevant.)

~fantasai

---

From: Eric Scheid <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 19:56:07 +1100

> linking to the feed, but linking to it as an "alternate" is wrong.)

I think I shall have to resign myself to violently agreeing with you on this
point. [1] 

> (Searching Google for "feed resource" nottingham brings up nothing relevant.)

google might well not have seen it yet ... it was only a few messages back

    http://imc.org/atom-syntax/mail-archive/msg11706.html

e.

[1] That is not a typo.

---

From: Asbjørn Ulsberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 12:43:30 +0100

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 02:03:32 -0500, fantasai  
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> that is an alternate for /another/ page, and therefore the  
> rel="alternate" semantic does not apply to that link. (i.e. there's
> nothing wrong with linking to the feed, but linking to it as an
> "alternate" is wrong.)

I agree wholeheartedly, and have actually discussed this exact issue on  
several occasions before. I think the 'alternate' term is wrong in two  
scenarios:

   - When the referenced resource is the exact same resource as you're
     looking at (e.g. 'this').
   - When the referenced resource is something completely different, only
     related to the resource you're looking at (e.g. 'related').

Alternate Atom documents should be in alternative formats, languages,  
encodings, etc., but the content should be the same. If the content,  
format, language, encoding, etc., are all the same, the resource is not  
alternative but the one and only.

> of a URI to flag a link as pointing to a feed.

Good point.