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FW: Meta-Wiki LDAP authentication

Nick Triantos

6 Dec 2004 6 Dec '04

9:57 p.m.

Is anyone working on adding an RSS feed to the Special:Watchlist page? Presumably, most of the code could be shared / copied from Special:Recentchanges. I might try to implement this if no one else is working on this. thanks, -Nick

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Rowan Collins

6 Dec 6 Dec

11:06 p.m.

On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 13:57:59 -0800, Nick Triantos <nick(a)triantos.com> wrote:

Is anyone working on adding an RSS feed to the Special:Watchlist page? Presumably, most of the code could be shared / copied from Special:Recentchanges. I might try to implement this if no one else is working on this.

I think the problem which no-one has got around to solving is how to keep the information private: currently, users cannot view each other's watchlists, and although this isn't a big deal, I believe some are unwilling to give up this privacy. Of course, the simplest answer is simply to have RSS feeds disabled by default, and warn users that by activating the feed, they are essentially "opting out" of this privacy. Otherwise, some kind of magic authentication key needs to be invented; or something. -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

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Nick Triantos

11:15 p.m.

I'm confused, wouldn't that Special:Watchlist page be generated based on the logged-in user? In other words, if I RSS subscribe to that page from my PC, I'd just see my own watchlist, right? confused, -Nick Rowan Collins wrote:

On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 13:57:59 -0800, Nick Triantos <nick(a)triantos.com> wrote:

Is anyone working on adding an RSS feed to the Special:Watchlist page? Presumably, most of the code could be shared / copied from Special:Recentchanges. I might try to implement this if no one else is working on this.

I think the problem which no-one has got around to solving is how to keep the information private: currently, users cannot view each other's watchlists, and although this isn't a big deal, I believe some are unwilling to give up this privacy. Of course, the simplest answer is simply to have RSS feeds disabled by default, and warn users that by activating the feed, they are essentially "opting out" of this privacy. Otherwise, some kind of magic authentication key needs to be invented; or something.

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Brion Vibber

11:39 p.m.

On Dec 6, 2004, at 3:15 PM, Nick Triantos wrote:

I'm confused, wouldn't that Special:Watchlist page be generated based on the logged-in user? In other words, if I RSS subscribe to that page from my PC, I'd just see my own watchlist, right?

If you read RSS directly in your browser, perhaps. But that won't help you in your standalone RSS feed reader application (which might be an aggregator serving out your favorite feeds via HTTP). An RSS news reader appears to the server as just another HTTP user agent, but it won't know how to use our forms to log in or maintain the login session cookies. Some (many?) readers can use HTTP authentication, perhaps via the URL (eg http://user:pass@example.com/feed.xml), but MediaWiki can't currently authenticate you that way. Alternately, a username could be passed as a query string parameter, either along with a password/hash/token (potentially unsafe -- this will appear in proxy and server logs in addition to going over the wire raw) or after an explicit opt-in by the user to allow reading the watchlist without authentication. - brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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Guillaume Blanchard

7 Dec 7 Dec

1 a.m.

Brion rwote :

Alternately, a username could be passed as a query string parameter, either along with a password/hash/token (potentially unsafe -- this will appear in proxy and server logs in addition to going over the wire raw) or after an explicit opt-in by the user to allow reading the watchlist without authentication.

Public watchlist option may be great both for RSS feed and for sharing watchlist (ie. a watchlist for a WikiProject that all people interst in may be able to check). Additionally it may be useful to have a 'only new page' filter in RSS (but perhaps it already exist). Aoineko

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Evan Prodromou

3:23 p.m.

On Tue, 2004-07-12 at 10:00 +0900, Guillaume Blanchard wrote:

Public watchlist option may be great both for RSS feed and for sharing watchlist (ie. a watchlist for a WikiProject that all people interst in may be able to check). Additionally it may be useful to have a 'only new page' filter in RSS (but perhaps it already exist).

Maybe you're looking for the RSS feed for Special:Newpages? ~ESP -- Evan Prodromou <evan(a)wikitravel.org>

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Nick Triantos

3:33 p.m.

The problem with NewPages is that for active sites, it will overwhelm you with info about pages that don't matter to you. I think that RSS feeds of watchlists, in combination with either an opt-in policy or global site-wide settings to allow public watchlists, is the ticket. I'll try to code something like this up. thanks all, -Nick Evan Prodromou wrote:

On Tue, 2004-07-12 at 10:00 +0900, Guillaume Blanchard wrote:

Public watchlist option may be great both for RSS feed and for sharing watchlist (ie. a watchlist for a WikiProject that all people interst in may be able to check). Additionally it may be useful to have a 'only new page' filter in RSS (but perhaps it already exist).

Maybe you're looking for the RSS feed for Special:Newpages? ~ESP ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Evan Prodromou

5:53 p.m.

On Tue, 2004-07-12 at 07:33 -0800, Nick Triantos wrote:

The problem with NewPages is that for active sites, it will overwhelm you with info about pages that don't matter to you.

I'm just completely lost here, then. A new-pages-only feature for RSS feeds for your watchlist just seems weird to me. How do new pages get on your watchlist if you don't add them? And if you add them, why do you need to read an RSS feed about them?

I'll try to code something like this up.

It should be quite easy -- Brion's done a great job with RSS feeds. ~ESP -- Evan Prodromou <evan(a)wikitravel.org>

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Nick Triantos

11:26 p.m.

aah, sorry, I didn't mean for new pages, I meant for changed pages (RecentChanges). Sorry for the mixup. Newpages + watched pages would probably be an interesting feed as well... Evan Prodromou wrote:

On Tue, 2004-07-12 at 07:33 -0800, Nick Triantos wrote:

The problem with NewPages is that for active sites, it will overwhelm you with info about pages that don't matter to you.

I'm just completely lost here, then. A new-pages-only feature for RSS feeds for your watchlist just seems weird to me. How do new pages get on your watchlist if you don't add them? And if you add them, why do you need to read an RSS feed about them?

I'll try to code something like this up.

It should be quite easy -- Brion's done a great job with RSS feeds. ~ESP ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Brion Vibber
Evan Prodromou
Guillaume Blanchard
Nick Triantos
Rowan Collins