[wp-hackers] Need more RSS hooks

[Chris Meller]

On Jan 26, 2006, at 5:49 PM, Robert Deaton wrote:

>
>>
<snip>
>
> This is exactly what I object to including. Syndication feeds are
> meant to be fetched by a feed aggregator, read by the software, and
> shown to the user, not displayed like a webpage in a browser. Hoever,
> I hadn't thought of using XSL to show something like feedburner does
> to browsers, that's a completely different story, and I'd much prefer
> we display no content to the user and show them a message about how to
> view RSS feeds in a reader than a syled list of my posts like belongs
> on my webpage.

The point is not that this should replace your blog or anything  
conspiratorial like that. We're simply trying to show people a pretty  
page that actually contains useful information, rather than some raw  
XML that would leave someone who doesn't have a clue what RSS is  
wondering what the hell they did wrong. If I didn't know it was XML  
and that I should subscribe to it in my feed reader, I'd imagine the  
page was farked or that my browser didn't support it, and I know  
there are others out there who will be thinking the same thing.

We're also not talking about forcing styles on anyone. If you want to  
ensure that only people who know what they're doing get your RSS feed  
and subscribe to it manually, that's certainly your choice and more  
power to you. For the rest of us who don't mind getting inexperienced  
users hooked on a great technology by evangelizing its use and  
benefits in our feeds (for a whopping 600 bytes of overhead  
apparently) rather than leaving them cold and confused, it would be  
nice if the hooks were at least present in the base software so we  
can do it ourselves (remember, this conversation started by simply  
asking for these hooks to be present so a plugin could be written to  
apply a stylesheet, not by asking that styling be added by default in  
WP -- although I think it should, personally).

And before someone hurts me, I think there should be a configuration  
option to turn on and off any native styling WP may decide to apply  
to feeds in the future...

>
> On that note, I'm completely against displaying paid advertisements
> for any specific aggregator

Did I miss something? When were we talking about aggregators? :)

But on that note, if anyone would like to pay me to display an "Add  
to <quality aggregator>" button on my blog (*cough* FeedLounge  
*cough* Newsgator), I would be more than happy to accept your money,  
for I am poor and still trying to pay off my new PowerBook...

--
Chris Meller
chris at doesnthaveone.com