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Re: Postel's law, exceptions

• Subject: Re: Postel's law, exceptions
• From: "Bill Kearney" <wkearney@i...>
• Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 15:45:54 -0500
• Cc: <xml-dev@l...>
• Organization: http://www.ideaspace.net/users/wkearney/foaf.xrdf
• References: <830178CE7378FC40BC6F1DDADCFDD1D10195956B@R...>

From: "Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@m...>

>Exactly how does this solve the most common errors in RSS (and most
>likely ATOM) feeds?
>1.) Unescaped ampersands in link elements
>2.) documents with incorrect endoding in the XML declaration
>3.) Use of HTML entities in the document such as in the <title>

Shame them into compliance is one tactic.  Be nice about it but point out their
content is defective.  We do it and it's, slowly but surely, leading to a fair
number of fixes.

<http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php??OrderBy=date_xml_changed&OrderDir=desc&Sho
wStatus=AwaitingRepair>

Time and again our experience has shown that if you point out the errors to the
content producers, with an understanding of how they made the mistakes, they've
been willing to fix them.  Either by direct editing of their own code or by
updating their tools.

Educate them, inform them and engage them.  They're often more willing to listen
than you might think.

-Bill Kearney
Syndic8.com

• References:
  • RE: Postel's law, exceptions
    • From: "Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@m...>

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