RE: RSS 1.0: problems with feed, validator, CPAN module or specification?

Hi Olivier, Sam
   Many thanks for your speedy response to my query, identifying the problem
and deployed a fix.  Much appreciated.
   However as validators are of such importance to W3C and as the QA group
has an interest in the QA processes for ensuring standards and (I assume)
related applications such as validators, I think it would be useful to
identify what went wrong in this case and what can be done to make
improvements  (note a colleague who is a software developer felt that most
developers wouldn't have such a faith in validators as I do - but if you
can't trust the validators, what's the point of validation?).
   I appreciate that this may be overstating things - and in terms of the
speed of the response, the system is working fine.
   Anyway I've written something about this at:

http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/validators-dont-always-work/

Comments welcome.

Thanks

Brian
--------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk
Phone: +44 1225 383943
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-qa-request@w3.org [mailto:www-qa-request@w3.org] On 
> Behalf Of olivier Thereaux
> Sent: 06 February 2007 08:18
> To: Brian Kelly
> Cc: QA IG; Users of the FeedValidator; danbri@danbri.org
> Subject: Re: RSS 1.0: problems with feed, validator, CPAN 
> module or specification?
> 
> Hello Brian, all.
> 
> On Feb 5, 2007, at 16:45 , Brian Kelly wrote:
> > My organisation has an RSS 1.0 news feed - 
> > http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/news/feed/rss/
> >
> > When we validate this against the Feedvalidator hosted at 
> W3C we get 
> > an
> > error:
> >
> > line 26, column 0: Undefined channel element: taxo:topics [help]
> >     <taxo:topics>
> > http://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%
> > 2Fwww.ukoln.ac.uk%2Fne
> > ws%2Ffeed%2Frss%2F
> >
> > I've been trying to get this fixed, but it has proved difficult to 
> > track down the root cause.
> 
> There are, as you mention, a number of problems, but 
> ultimately I think there was a bug in the feed validator.
> 
> 
> 
> > It was pointed out to me that the RSS 1.0 taxonomy specification is 
> > flawed i.e. the example at 
> > http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/taxonomy/
> > contains invalid XML.
> 
> Yes, the examples appear to not even be well-formed.
> I'm copying Dan, whom I know was involved in the spec - Dan, 
> could you bring that to the RSS-Dev group's attention?
> 
> > We don't know if the problem is:
> >
> >   1 In our feed
> 
> Your feed appears to be fine. I see that its content-type is 
> application/xml. While this is what the spec over at http:// 
> web.resource.org/rss/1.0/spec says, I think the recommended 
> media type is "application/rdf+xml", since RSS1.0 and 1.1 are 
> RDF. Other than that, I think your feed is fine.
> 
> >   2 In the module used to create the feed
> 
> Faultless AFAICT.
> 
> >   3 In the RSS 1.0 Taxonomy specification
> 
> The examples are wrong. Can't say anything about the rest of the spec.
> 
> >   4 In the validator itself.
> 
> There is a bug here, I think.
> 
> The spec at
> http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/taxonomy/
> mentions that the element <taxo:topics> "may be included in 
> channel, item or taxo:topic" elements. The feed validator, 
> however, appears to only recognize it within <item>.
> 
> I am not enough of an expert in RSS or its modules, but I 
> think the attached patch for the feed validator's code and 
> test case should improve the situation (not entirely though, 
> it would, I think, make <taxo:topics> authorized within 
> <item> and <channel> but not <taxo:topic>). I'm copying the 
> feedvalidator list so that the patch can be reviewed.
> 
> Thanks,
> --
> olivier Thereaux - W3C - http://www.w3.org/People/olivier/ 
> W3C Open Source Software: http://www.w3.org/Status
> 
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:16:00 UTC