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RSS 2.0 Question

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I've had a request to add <author> to our RSS 2.0 feeds. Problem is, its a wacky element - it seems to require us to *only* use an email address - i.e., I can't sub in a display name, a real name or anything else that might otherwise point to a person - username@hostname.tld appears to be the only valid input.

Is this an accurate interpretation of the spec? What will I break when Blogware starts ignoring this requirement and uses "Display Names" instead?

<author> sub-element of <item> 

<author> is an optional sub-element of <item>.

It's the email address of the author of the item.

See this post as it first appeared on Blogware.

5 comments

Comments are closed - these are kept exactly as they were left.

  1. (name not saved), July 15, 2004

    All you should need is:
    displayname

  2. (name not saved), July 15, 2004

    Hrm. Brain fart - I'd totally misplaced an entire mental file labelled "Dublin Core Extensions" ;)
    Wouldn't dc:contributor be closer to what you need?

  3. (name not saved), July 15, 2004

    I heard Dave address this at a recent meeting -- saying that he feels that the time for that is past (he actually put up a feed on the screen we used and said, "what's wrong with this feed?" and then said, "The email address is right there!" He didn't mean wrong in the sense of a noncompliant feed, but as an example of future tweaks that the advisory board could address).

  4. (name not saved), July 15, 2004

    Glad to hear that its not just me :) (...and even happier to hear that the *right* people have it on their radar...)

  5. (name not saved), July 15, 2004

    Looks good to me. I'll let the rest of the crew know they're in. Thanks man!