Re: [syndication] Automatically Transforming Blog or HTML Content into XML

["Bill Kearney" <ml_yahoo@ideaspace.net>]

> pretty important to me, and to other people who have to make defensible
> explanations of just what the hell the set of features are that make
> something a "blog".  the developer community isn't doing this.

Perhaps because we don't care?  It's the *content* silly.  What tool goes into
flogging it has terribly little relevance in the overall scheme of things.  That
content comes online is the end game.  Which tool goes into dominating that
space is of considerably less relevance (but certainly not to it's developers of
course).

> > To a developer flogging their divine vision of what a weblog "is"?
>
> I'm assuming that you're talking about Dave, though in a slant-rhyme sort
> of way.  I agree that what he's doing is 'evangelism' rather than
> 'research', but I also think that what he's doing (with his "what is a
> weblog" page) provides a layer of "description-for-newbies" that SOMEONE
> has to do.

Hey, you said it, not me.  Recent events show there's certainly some 'jockeying'
going on to see who gets to reign supreme over defining what is or isn't a
weblog.  This is nothing new, not to RSS and certainly not to human culture in
general.

> this is certainly one valid definition, but there are others.  one of the
> concerns that i have is that, by calling too many things "blogs", the
> community of users and developers gets confused about just what they ought
> to be trying to do with tools.

Demonstrate where they're "confused".  This presupposes that you're prepared to
answer their confusions.  I'm as skeptical of people saying others are confused
as I am when politicans start saying "it's for the good of the children" or
"national security".  Who are these "people" and just how are they so
"confused"?

> "blogs" are not just one thing to all
> people - there are shades of gray, rather than just "blog and not-blog".
> some tools have more blog-like features than others, and some tools have
> features that are inherited from weblogs but are NOT THEMSELVES BLOGS.

Hmm, what seems to fit the widest definition of a 'weblog' is a site that's
authored by an individual and presented in, but not solely, chronologically
orderable ways.  A journal does this, so does a diary, so does a portal,
likewise a full-on CMS like Vignette /can/ also do this.  Now, /do/ they?  Ah,
not all do.  More still do this but only as a subset of their overall feature
set.  Each arguing, of course, that their feature set is the end-all-be-all
definition of the penultimate weblogging or CMS tool.

> > > yeah.  semantics are important here - a high % of blog tools used
> > > (counting users, not tools) don't do RSS, but a high % of blog tools
> > > (counting % of all tools, not of all users) *do* do RSS.
> >
> > I *strongly* disagree with the idea that "a high percentage of blog tools
used
> > don't do RSS".  That's fundamentally just not correct.
>
> please go back and read the above quoted material again, and parse it, and
> see if you can figure out why i'm saying what i'm saying.  you're
> half-right.  look at the parentheticals.

Extant number of blogs (users).
Extant number of blogging tools (no list is offered)

Assertion is that based on the extant number of blogs that the tools don't "do"
RSS.  This is wrong.  But then you're not defining what "do RSS" means.  The
tools DO have RSSm they can produce it.  Whether or not the users are enabling
is IS a valid question.  But it's not the same thing as saying the tools don't
do RSS.  What you're presenting here is that majority of users producing weblogs
are not availing themselves of using RSS.  This is quite correct.  But that's
not the same thing as saying the tools don't do it.

> points to look for:
> * a high percentage of blog tool users are using Blogger

Based on what metric?

> * blogger doesn't support rss natively

Wrong, it does.  It just makes it optional.

> * therefore, a high percentage of bloggers don't have access to RSS

Define "access".  They certainly have 'access' to it.  They're chosing not to
use it, often out of ignorance.  Sometimes out of unwillingness to pay for it.

> * of tools in use, a high percentage of them do provide RSS
> * not as many people are using the high percentage of tools that do provide
RSS

And the conclusion being what?

> > But we're debating a point here without having an accurate list of what's
being
> > considered a "blog tool".
>
> sure.  and we can't go there without having a def'n of what a blog is.
> once you have that, you can define blog tools as the set of all things
> that can be used to build blogs.  ;)

What foregone conclusion are you operating under?  What answer are you looking
to justify with numbers?  It sure sounds like that's what's going on here.

> > From what I've seen that staggering majority of tools that work with
> > "things vaguely considered as weblogs" DO have RSS features built right
> > into them. There are /some/ that don't enable this feature by default.
>
> i agree with what you're saying.  a high percentage of tools, used by a
> very small (compared to the total) percentage of users.

Hmmm, again, I disagree.  But here you're switching to "used by" instead of
saying the tools don't do it.  This is the crux of our disagreement.

I'm defending the assertion that majority of tools DO have the ability to
provide RSS.  This being important from the perspective of RSS being a valuable
tool for use in weblogging.

> > So unless there's a list somewhere that delineates what is or isn't this
> > list of tools, and that it's been authoritatively confirmed that they do
> > or don't support RSS then I really can't support your assertions about
> > percentages.  I'm prepared to be corrected but remain skeptical that
> > such will turn out to be the case.
>
> there's the one for rss tools on syndic8... though someone should probably
> take that list and supplement it with a list of tools that are in the same
> space but do NOT do rss...  i guess this isn't really a problem for this
> list, though.

No, I'm asking what list of tools have you used thus far to build to this
conclusion?  I suspect it's lacking but that's an assumption on my part and I
could well be wrong.

I'm thinking however, that we're arguing over wording.  I find disagreement with
the assumption that /appears/ to be the conclusion you're making.  But perhaps
I'm jumping the gun.

> > > it has been fun ;)  nice to confirm some gossip from the larger
> > > community, while disproving other bits...
> >
> > Likewise, we're seen a fair number of articles discussing RSS.  A great
> > many of them have, thus far, been fundamentally flawed.  They were all
> > written with the best of intentions, of course, but usually lacked some
> > key bits of background. Fortunately the authors have all been quick to
> > engage in debate and have amended their materials as a result.  Not to
> > everyone's satisfaction of course.
>
> thankfully.  we need more articles that address this space.

Oh quite right, along with vigorous debate.

> one of the Big Problems is that there are a whole bunch of perspectives
> involved in the RSS community, and in aggregation/syndication in general.
> it is impossible to write an article that addresses all points of view
> without getting flamed by people who think you should have included their
> POV, which is of course superior to all others.  people are jerks.

One could likewise argue that people trying to force one article's viewpoint are
likewise jerks.

> > I'm not saying "your're wrong" more that the perspective you're
> > espousing doesn't parallel mine and, from my experience, doesn't match
> > that of conditions in the field.
>
> i think we agree more than you're thinking we do.

No, I think we both grasp the same things and do largely agree.  Where we're
disconnecting, I think, is in what conclusions can be made from observed data.
I'm arguing that there's not a wide enough sampling to make the sort of 'pat
statements' I'm unfairly assuming you're leading up to.

> thank you for responding.

Likewise, the expansion of the debate is always a good thing.

-Bill Kearney