Up to this point, the vast majority of use cases for Atom feeds is the
traditional syndicated content case. A bunch of content updates that
are designed to be distributed and aggregated within Feed readers or
online aggregators, etc. But with Atom providing a much more flexible
content model that allows for data that may not be suitable for display
within a feed reader or online aggregator, I'm wondering what the best
way would be for a publisher to indicate that a feed should not be
aggregated?
For example, suppose I build an application that depends on an Atom feed
containing binary content (e.g. a software update feed). I don't really
want aggregators pulling and indexing that feed and attempting to
display it within a traditional feed reader. What can I do?
Does the following work?
<feed>
...
<x:aggregate>no</x:aggregate>
</feed>
Should I use a processing instruction instead?
<?dont-aggregate ?>
<feed>
...
</feed>
I dunno. What do you all think? Am I just being silly or does any of
this actually make a bit of sense?
- James
