Public Feed List »
Yesterday afternoon, Dave Winer published a request for comments (RFC) on how to best provide a list of feeds that are available on your site. The result of this RFC? The generation of another OPML file, somewhat akin to the use of mySubscriptions.opml. The name of this new file should be myPublicFeeds.opml.
I like Dave's proposal for at least three reasons.
#1 - I already have one. I put it together about three weeks ago for no particular purpose other than to see if I could. I simply created an index template that contains links to each of the standard feeds that I publish: The full site feeds, the monthly feeds and the category feeds. Mine was called something different, but since I never published the URL, I can easily change the name. Incidentally, I'm not the only one with such a file already. David Thomson has an OPML file for Tapestry for this very reason.
#2 - MT-Outliner, the plugin I wrote recently for Movable Type, should be able to handle this file format without any modifications to the code. I like it when that happens. New function, existing tool. Sweet. It's just an OPML file that can be imported, even one folder at a time. If you don't use MT or don't want to use the file in this way, you could even take this file and import it to your Bloglines account and use it there.
#3 - Very little needs to change. OPML exists already. True that it's a bit open-ended, as you can generally define your own attributes. But the attributes Dave has proposed are ones generally in use and understood already. It seems to me that extending something in place already might make for a bit more sense than defining an entirely new implementation.
The only other concern is one raised in a Q&A at Dave's site this morning. One thing missing from the initial proposal is a way to automatically find this list of feeds. Using the same name is fine, but then not everyone likes to do that. Perhaps adding a link tag would be the best idea. Obviously not a link tag to each feed, but a link tag to the list of feeds. Once again David Thomson has the solution in his link. He's already proposed a new link tag for the index of this new OPML file. He elaborates on the thought today. I like the idea.
