[Feeds] Re: Should we standardize on a single URL path to RSS feeds?

[Jens Oliver Meiert <[e-mail]>]

> I think it shouldn't be too difficult to define that .well-known is a
> file where e.g. each line points to a feed. I'd suggest you look at the
> .well-known IANA registry and check out some of the registrations.

Please read this as most friendly (I’m familiar with some of your
work), there are probably a few things here that shouldn’t be too
difficult! To me it seems a solution is being found without the
problem being confirmed and well-defined. (This is not to say you and
others aren’t clear about this—it is to ask to share a problem
definition and why this solution—.well-found—would be preferable to
others.)

For example, feeds have been around for two decades, and discovery
seems to have worked reasonably well throughout the time. Also, there
may be other solutions, too, whether hooking up to other discovery
mechanisms like the Sitemaps protocol (just a spontaneous example—I
may err but on scanning, it doesn’t seem to prohibit including feeds)
or using HTTP headers. Solutions could even contain “soft” approaches
like promoting the existing way of using the “link” element and
working with vendors to make feeds first-class citizens in the browser
again. Some of this could show that the problem isn’t in critical need
of solving, some of it could help mitigate the problem for whom it is
a problem.

And yet from looking at the history of this list, it’s unclear to me
whether and how the clarity we arrive at here would be used—is there
some action already taken on behalf of the IETF?

--
Jens Oliver Meiert
https://meiert.com/en/ · https://mas.to/@j9t