3 Reasons Why WordPress Should Not Drop RSS 1.0
There are talks about dropping RSS 1.0 from the WordPress development. RSS 1.0 is the only RDF version of the RSS feed format. I’m very disappointed to hear this news.
I agree RSS 1.0 is an old technology, but it’s not a dead technology. People do use this format to build interesting and useful applications, e.g., PlanetRDF.com. All blogs on PlanetRDF are aggregated from various RSS 1.0 feeds published by semantic web hobbyist.
I acknowledge similar application can be built without using RSS 1.0 (i.e., RDF). For example, Planet Geospatial is a feed aggregator that uses feeds collected from Feedburner (I presume it’s using the RSS 2.0 format). Update: see James Fee’s comment on how Planet Geospatial actually builds its blog aggregator.
Reasons that I believe RSS 1.0 should not be dropped from WordPress:
- RDF and XML are two completely different technologies. They are two representation formats for solving different problems. Dropping RSS 1.0 (RDF) from WordPress will discourage developers from using WordPress as a platform for building the next generation Semantic Web applications.
- Dropping RSS 1.0 can’t be justified just because all RSS readers today support both RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0. Granted that RSS readers today consume and process feeds of different formats pretty much the same way. However, it’s difficult to say whether this phenomenon will continue to hold in the future as people gain better knowledge about the use of RDF on the Web. Perhaps new Semantic Web technologies will open new doors to the consumption of RDF (RSS 1.0), which will enable us to build more smart web applications.
- As a WordPress user, I like to have options. I want to be able to choose the format of RSS feeds that I publish. I don’t want to be told what format is the “standard” format and what format is the “right” format.
Actually Planet Geospatial does aggregate some RSS 1.0 feeds (I either picked the first feed listed or asked each site’s publisher which feed to use). If you check the OPML you’ll see them listed, but I’ve noticed much less RSS 1.0 publishing than there was a year ago.
To simplify the scripts run time, I only publish one feed (using feedburner) and I know it validates as valid RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 which should cover 99% of users.
I’ve decided to only publish one feed url so that I can keep better track of everything rather than publishing RSS 0.91/1.0/2.0 and Atom feeds.
Comment by James Fee — January 16, 2006 @ 6:08 pm
[...] Harry Chen provides three good reasons for sticking with RSS 1.0 support, reasons that are well worth seconding. Atom opens up a lot of semantic web possibilities—particularly thanks to work to model it as a microformat and in OWL—but RSS 2.0 certainly doesn’t offer the scope and power to justify replacing 1.0. [...]
Pingback by a work on process » Dropping RSS1.0 From Wordpress — January 16, 2006 @ 8:20 pm
[...] I hear from Uldis and Harry there is talk of dropping RSS 1.0 support from WordPress. Here’s my ?0.02. [...]
Pingback by Raw » WordPress and RSS 1.0 — January 17, 2006 @ 8:11 am
[...] 3 Reasons Why WordPress Should Not Drop RSS 1.0 Dropping RSS 1.0 can?t be justified just because all RSS readers today support both RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0. Granted that RSS readers today consume and process feeds of different formats pretty much the same way. However, it?s difficult to say whether this phnomenom will continue to hold in the future as people gain better knowledge about the use of RDF on the Web. Perhaps new Semantic Web technologies will open new doors to the consumption of RDF (RSS 1.0), which will enable us to build more smart web applications. [...]
Pingback by Casual.info.in.a.bottle » Blog Archive » Wordpress e feeds: una preoccupante tendenza… — January 18, 2006 @ 3:06 am