jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:
http://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fabj.jidanni.org%2Findex.... says it is a valid feed.
Being valid doesn't mean the feed makes logical sense. The <guid> tag is optional because RSS can be used for a lot of other things than just MediaWiki RecentChanges. For some of these things, only a plain list of items with no unique identification is desired (live GPS tracking, for example). Note that RSS also does not mandate a <pubDate>, but would you argue that a RecentChanges feed is correct without a <pubDate>?
I'd argue that not having <guid>s in RecentChanges RSS feeds is the bug here, since we have a list of items that are uniquely identified (each change is unique and can be unambiguously referenced). As I said, in fact, that is bug #7346.
which work fine for every feed I've encountered except Mediawiki's,
How many of these feeds list unique entries without providing <guid>s? Even though I really doubt that you have seen that many feeds, this is called "anecdotal evidence". You may see a million cases that support your point-of-view, yet, that doesn't make it correct.
The behavior of your particular software (checksumming the contents of an entry) is not condoned by any specification. If an entry doesn't have a <guid>, even if the same identical contents are read from two distinct requests, there is no guarantee that they are the same unique entry.
The description of a feed entry is not set in stone, it may change for a number of reasons. The correct way to keep track of the changes of a particular entry is through its unique identifier.
And readers will not necessarily stop comparing content just because there now is a guid.
If a reader duplicates entries with the same unique identifier when the contents of the entry change, that particular reader goes directly against the recommendation of the specifications (or at least the Atom specification, RFC 4287). The reader may, however, signal that a particular entry was updated if another entry with the same id but a different updated date is received (Atom).
And we shouldn't be required to ask reader packages to implement an Atom version, because we can't use RSS anymore, just because someone left debugging turned on.
Your reasoning is strange. There is no need to require readers to implement anything at all. If you need a feature that is provided by X, and your product Y doesn't support that feature, you just use a different product.
In this case, there is enough demand for Atom, and most (all?) non-abandoned feed reader software support it.
And the "because someone left debugging turned on" is completely irrelevant to the issue here.
Nor why must we start using extensions, just because someone has left debugging turned on.
I offered you an option. I'm not telling you that you must start using anything.
I guessed the problem you are experiencing is due to the lack of unique identifiers, so I suggested you to test the extension, which replaces the standard RSS feed with one that provides unique ids. That would tell us precisely where is the issue.
In any case, would you tell me what are your feed reader software?
Regards, Juliano.