[ticker-dev] Re: channel subscription rules

[Matthew Phillips]

David Arnold wrote:

>in considering the tradeoff between usability and efficient
>evaluation, i'm not convinced that making the router do
>
>  fold-case(Group) == fold-case("MyChannelName")
>
>instead of
>
>  Group == "MyChannelName"
>
>is worth the usability outcome.
>
I'd argue yes, especially since I'm assuming that this isn't a 
particularly high-overhead operation? btw does the server optimize the 
"fold-case('MyChannelName')" to "mychannelname"?

>i've long felt that Tickertape needed to move away from a model of
>requiring users to type in group names and towards using a MIME type
>for channel descriptions (ie. my short presentation on this topic at
>the 2001 workshop).  this would simplify the process of mailing and
>tickering groups for subscription, allowing a click-to-subscribe UI.
>  
>
A MIME encoding for subscriptions would be useful. But, in practice, an 
effective way to "share" groups is already available via presence. Most 
of the people using Sticker never type in a group name: they select 
groups that other people are already subscribed to. It's why I've been 
hassling Martin to get eTiks to emit the Ticker-Groups and News-Groups 
fields in presence. I'm actually a little surprised that eTiks and 
Aquatik haven't taken advantage of this information in their 
subscription UI's, given that the information comes pretty much for free 
if you're doing presence anyway.

I realise that this technique doesn't support complex subscriptions, but 
I think that sort of subscription is less likely to be shared.

Matthew.