Lukas is musing about how RSS feeds "should" be configured.
A number of blogs have recently been discussing how RSS feeds should be configured. Some of the questions that frequently come up are:
- Should feeds contain the full content of posts or just an excerpt?
- Should additional content like user comments and trackbacks be included?
- How many days/posts should be included?
Rather than try and come up with answers to those questions that would satisfy all my readers, I've decided to provide the full range of options.
I'd been thinking about this a bunch because when he first added in comments it was driving the aggregator in Radio crazy. We actually were just talking about this a few days ago too. I don't think there is necessarily a "should". Though, I could see a few reasons to want to keep it to just posts or an excerpts. Though they all tend to apply to larger sites.
The primary one has to do with bandwidth. If I'm a newspaper who is syndicating stories, the bandwidth requirements aren't as much for me if I just do excerpts. Remember that RSS is a bit different from a normal web page in that most aggregators are hitting it every hour (or less) and downloading.
You could get around it with some kind of database and dynamicly building the feed, but I think you might end up with some steep resource requirements. Though in the case of most personal blogs that wouldn't be an issue.
For now I'm just offering a base feed that includes the full post. One thing I'm thinking of doing is using MT's 'Extended Entry' area for extra long posts. That would help break up what is on the front page, when I have ones that would go on and on and on.
