This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by James Robertson. Original Post: Blog Comment Issues Feed Title: Richard Demers Blog Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rademers-rss.xml Feed Description: Richard Demers on Smalltalk Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by James Robertson Latest Posts From Richard Demers Blog

Regarding Michael Lucas-Smith's item on James Robertson blog hosting redux:

Michael, thanks for the links to the comment feeds. I didn't know they existed. Having now added them and looked them over, it is apparent that we (the aggregator community) don't know what to do with comments. This leads to some additional questions:

1. When looking at a blog webpage, it is reasonable to append comments to the blog entry, either automatically or on-demand, but when viewing a blog through its RSS feed, then what? BottomFeeder allows you to send a comment on a blog item, but it currently has no way to display comments, never mind in a way that associates comments with specific items. In my redesign of the BottomFeeder domain model, I defined comments as a hierarchy of elements that have an item as their root. This leads me to think it would be appropriate to make the displayed item list into a tree, with only the items of a feed initially displayed, and the possibility of opening an item's tree of comments on-demand.
2. How should the comments on an item be communicated? Using up a separate RSS file for comments is awkward, at best, though it would be possible for an aggregator to associate a blog feed with its comment feed and merge them appropriately. A better alternative is to include comments in the blog feed, as is allowed by the RSS 2.0 spec and by the Well Formed Web Comment API module. Getting bloggers to do this, however, is another matter entirely.
3. If I, a blogger, want to comment on someone else's item, then I have two choices. First, I can use the BottomFeeder "Send Comment on Item" facility. My comment ends up on the other person's blog, but I have no record of having sent it on my system. Second, I can add an entry to my own blog, with a reference and a trackback to the original item. But then the original blog item has only a possibility of a trackback to my blog, and nothing to integrate into its tree of comments on the original item.