The feed is generated dynamically - all parameters are passed in URL, e. g.
.../index.php?title=Special:NewsChannel&format=rss20&limit=10&cat1=Published&excat1=Disputed&
...
So there will be no "real" channels, stored in XML files on disk - all channels
will be "virtual", created dynamically. One "general" channel (preset
in configuration) will be linked in HTML <head> section on every wiki page, like
recent changes feed is linked now. This channel will use predefined set of categories
(including "Category:Published" and excluding "Category:Disputed", as
it was decided on Wikinews). If user wants to make feed out of other categories, or in
different format, or with different number of items, then he goes to
[[Special:NewsChannel]] page and uses a form there to configure his own virtual channel.
And on every Wikinews' portal, there will be custom link with some other set of
parameters, e. g. for sports news it will be
.../index.php?title=Special:NewsChannel&format=rss20&limit=10&cat1=Published&cat2=Sports&excat1=Disputed&
...
Using just that link, user can subscribe to any channel. That's how it works.
Therу is no need to restrict access on Wikinews, so $authorizedEditors setting will not be
used there. Other settings are not likely to be changed often. But you're right that
current configuration system is not very suitable - maybe I should modify it in some way.
Best regards,
Iaroslav Vassiliev
----- Original Message -----
From: Marcus Buck
To: Wikimedia developers
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 6:18 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] RSS/Atom news channel for Wikinews
Iaroslav Vassiliev hett schreven:
I recently developed a MediaWiki extension, that
allows to export news in RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 format in easy manner. First I developed it
for my own site, but I thought it could be useful for other projects, especially for
Wikinews. I talked to Wikinews enthusiasts on their mailing list, and they agree, that
it's a good idea. It's really better than current system - now they use some
external tool, but only headlines are exported without actual content, Atom format is not
supported, and sometimes it stops updating.
My extension is called "News Channel" and is available at
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:News_Channel. Basically, when user or aggregation
program requests a feed, the extension gets specified number of latest articles from some
specified news categories (e.g. [[Category:Published]]), exports it to RSS/Atom feed
format and sends to user. Articles's title will be the headline and article's text
will be the description of news item. It's possible to combine and exclude categories
(e.g. [[Category:Published]] + [[Category:Sports]] - [[Category:Disputed]]) to get
specific news only.
Sounds like a very useful extension. But: When I look at the
configuration settings at
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:News_Channel> it seems, as if
only one channel can be set up. Or do I misunderstand something? It
should be possible to define several feeds (e.g. special feeds for
science news, economy news or sports news). And then there are variables
like $authorizedEditors. Does that mean, you need to file a bug at
Bugzilla and wait for a person with shell access if you want to add a
user who can publish news? There should be an easier way. Like a tag,
that can be added in the wiki text of a category, defining the
properties of the channel which are in NewsChannel_body.php at the moment.
Marcus Buck
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