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edit David Janes 2004-06-07 00:16 UTC 3 comments  ·

Interesting. Robert Scoble is also using RSS Bandit because it supports comment threading. Comment threading is also supported by SharpReader, which I just installed to see how it works. I have to say I've been thinking about comment threading also, because it makes sense. Here's the system these newsreaders are using.

There's a namespace defined by some group of folks called the Well Formed Web named "xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/". This defines two elements, "comment" and "commentRSS", the later which we're more interested in. The commentRSS element points to another feed URI which contains comments against a particular blog posting.

For example, here's an entry from Microsoft's Channel 9: 

<item>
 <title>Antique Computers</title> 
 <pubDate>Sat, 05 Jun 2004 21:21:07 GMT</pubDate> 
 <link>http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583#9583</link> 
 <dc:creator>jamie</dc:creator> 
 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583#9583</guid> 
 <description>I just got this Vic20 today at a yard sale for 3 bucks ;)<BR><BR><IMG src="http://www.gnuarts.com/vic.jpg"><BR><BR>to go with my old old Mac:<BR><IMG src="http://www.gnuarts.com/mac.jpg"><BR><BR>Anyone at MS collect old machines?<BR><BR>* Im wondering if i should leave them old and dirty, or clean them all up..<BR></description> 
 <slash:comments>3</slash:comments> 
 <comments>http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583</comments> 
 <wfw:comment>http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583</wfw:comment> 
 <wfw:commentRss>http://channel9.msdn.com/rss.aspx?threadID=9583</wfw:commentRss> 
</item>

The bolded element "http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583" defines an RSS feed for the comments.

Here's the issues I see:

  • This could add a massive number of new feeds to check.
  • We have to add another level of hierarchy to display the elements.
  • Once we've read an item, do we really want to keep redisplaying it every time someone updates the comments
  • How widely supported is this namespace?

One possible solution is just use the "commentRss" feed to detect whether the comments have changed, but don't actually track the individual comments. When there are new comments add an icon that can be clicked on to display the comments page (defined in the "comments" elemenet). Entries will not be redisplayed, but "Pin to List" will keep the comment checking fresh...

Comment #1 — Jason

2004-06-15 05:26:27
I like this approach. I approve of the idea of comment threading in aggregators, but I really dis-like having a change/addition in the comments of a post cause the post to appear updated/unread.

Having an indicator that shows an update to the comments in a post while leaving the post marked read would be ideal in my opinion.

Comment #2 — Blog Jones

2004-06-18 08:58:37
It looks like you're thinking about having Jäger track every comment on every post; I wonder if you could just make it track comments on posts that the user specifies. That could take care of your first point.

On your third point: YES, on certain posts where I'm trying to have conversation, but certainly not on every post.

Can't help on the 2nd and 4th.

Here's something really weird: I tried to add an individual post to the bloglist in a separate category (Comments), with the URL http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/007794.html and it worked, while on another Movable Type weblog, http://www.jessicaswell.com/MT/archives/001458.html it doesn't work.

Really, the ideal thing for me would be if Jager could track individual posts the same way that it tracks weblogs. Like this --> http://www.blogjones.com/Images/Jager.jpg

Comment #3 — Phil Wilson

2004-07-04 22:15:31
"The bolded element "http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583" defines an RSS feed for the comments."

er, no it doesn't? It defines an endpoint for the CommentAPI doesn't it?

http://channel9.msdn.com/rss.aspx?threadID=9583 defines an RSS feed for the comments on that item.
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