> Roger, please don't see this as an attack. Robert: I would have to be one seriously touchy prick to see that as an attack. Don't sweat it.
> I don't think there's a scope argument here. That's what I get for using a loaded term. My apologies. Again, I think title-only feeds are reasonable. And in a letter-of-the-poorly-phrased-charter sense, they're definitely in scope. But from a broader "why are we bothering with this?" perspective, I think they're a bit off the map. If I create a minimal Atom feed containing a title/link/summary combo, I will get pretty uniform results across 95% of the aggregators out there. That's our baseline, the default expectation. If I create a minimal feed with just title and link, on the other hand, I'm going to get substantially different results from app to app. That's no sin, nor is it the end of the world. But it's the kind of thing that publishers need to understand going in. Does that require a SHOULD in the spec? Perhaps not. Maybe it just needs a big, bold paragraph in an implementation guide. But it feels like a SHOULD to me. Every title-only feed is a support request waiting to happen, as new users stare at their screens and wonder why the feed is "broken". And I'm not convinced that aggregator developers should be the primary heat-takers in such situations... if you're producing titles-only feeds, you need to know what you're doing, and you need to be educating users prior to subscription. For what it's worth, no one needs to feel compelled to address this post. I'm not trying to hold up the process. I'm just not sure I've adequately explained my thinking up to now, and wanted to give it another shot. The end. -- Roger Benningfield
