[ticker-dev] Merging chat and news messages?

[David Arnold]

-->"Klaus" == Klaus Alexander Seistrup <kas-list at magnetic-ink.dk> writes:

  Klaus> G'day mates

G'day cob! :-)

<...>

  Klaus> <http://elvin.dstc.edu.au/ListArchive/ticker-dev/archive/2002/04/msg00002.html>.

<...>

  Klaus> Does anyone have a good naming scheme that would allow us to
  Klaus> use the same notification format for chat and news messages?
  Klaus> Or should we simply keep the two formats separate, as in the
  Klaus> old protocols?

i'd welcome a merger, personally.  the separation is historical, and i
can't think of a good reason to retain it.

it does revive the long-agonised-over naming discussion, but ... oh
well.

"Subject" and "Body" are tempting, although use of "Subject" for chat
is a little disconcerting.

  Klaus> On a side note, I would find it useful to have two optional
  Klaus> fields: (1) a "Summary" field, that would summarize the
  Klaus> contents of a news message (or perhaps we should just use the
  Klaus> "Subject" type of field for that?),

no objections to "Summary" as an optional field.  it would be nice for
things like the ABC news scraper, which actually has such a thing (but
not a real "Body").

  Klaus> and (2) a "Keywords" field containing e.g. a comma (or even
  Klaus> whitespace) separated list of keywords.

no real objections to that either, although i'm less sure of its use,
since presumably once could filter on any or all of "Subject",
"Summary" and "Body" to get the same information?  it would be
quicker, i suppose ...





d