One document matched: draft-snell-atompub-feed-index-06.txt

Differences from draft-snell-atompub-feed-index-05.txt




Network Working Group                                           J. Snell
Internet-Draft                                         February 20, 2006
Expires: August 24, 2006


                               Feed Rank
                 draft-snell-atompub-feed-index-06.txt

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

   This document defines a mechanism for numerically ranking entries
   within a syndication feed.










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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  Ranking Domains and Schemes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     3.1.  The 'r:scheme' element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     3.2.  The 'r:rank' element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  Ranking Domain Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   5.  Ranking Domain and Scheme Identifiers  . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   6.  Processing Rankings  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   7.  Default Ranking Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   8.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   9.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 10



































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1.  Introduction

   In syndication document formats such as Atom [RFC4287] and RSS, the
   order of entries as presented in the list is typically insignificant.
   This presents a challenge when the list of entries is intended to
   represent an ordered or ranked set.  This document specifies a
   mechanism that allows feed publishers to establish numeric rankings
   for entries within a feed to be used as a means of organizing and
   sorting those entries.  Although this document refers to Atom
   normatively, the mechanism described herein can be used with similar
   syndication formats, such as the various flavors of RSS.


2.  Notational Conventions

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, [RFC2119].

   In this specification, "entry" refers to an atom:entry element or
   similar construct from other syndication formats (e.g., RSS) that are
   contained within a feed.

   In this specification, "feed" refers to an Atom Feed Document or
   similar syndication format (e.g., RSS) that contains a collection of
   entries.

   In this specification, "head section" refers to the children of a
   feed document's document-wide metadata container; e.g., the child
   elements of the atom:feed element in an Atom Feed Document or the
   children of the RSS 'channel' element.

   This specification uses XML Namespaces [W3C.REC-xml-names-19990114]
   to uniquely identify XML element names.  It uses the following
   namespace prefix for the indicated namespace URI;
   "r": "http://purl.org/syndication/index/1.0"

   This specification uses terms from the XML Infoset [W3C.REC-xml-
   infoset-20040204].  However, this specification uses a shorthand; the
   phrase "Information Item" is omitted when naming Element Information
   Items.  Therefore, when this specification uses the term "element,"
   it is referring to an Element Information Item in Infoset terms.


3.  Ranking Domains and Schemes

   A 'Ranking Domain' is a uniquely identifiable logical collection of
   entries containing numeric ranking values.



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   'Ranking Schemes' identify the specific rules for how the numeric
   ranking values within a 'Ranking Domain' are to be interpreted.

3.1.  The 'r:scheme' element

   Ranking Schemes are defined using the r:scheme element.
     rankingScheme = element r:scheme {
       atomCommonAttributes,
       attribute id { IRI }?,
       attribute label { text }?,
       attribute significance { 'ascending' | 'descending' }?,
       attribute precision { nonNegativeInteger }?,
       attribute minimum { decimal }?,
       attribute maximum { decimal }?
     }

   o  The 'id' attribute provides a universally unique identifier for
      the scheme.
   o  The 'label' attribute specifies a language-sensitive, human
      readable label for the scheme.
   o  The 'significance' attribute indicates how implementations are to
      interpret the significance of an entries numeric ranking value.  A
      value of 'descending' indicates that the significance of the rank
      descends as the numeric ranking value increases.  A value of
      'ascending' indicates that the significance of the rank increases
      as the numeric ranking value increases.  If not specified, the
      significance is considered to be 'ascending'.
   o  The 'precision' attribute specifies the level of precision to be
      applied to the value of the numeric ranking value.  The value is
      expressed as a non-negative integer.  If not specified the value
      is considered to be indeterminate (e.g., the number 2.0 is not
      distinct from the number 2.00).  Ranking schemes that are based on
      fractional numeric ranking values SHOULD specify a precision.
   o  The 'minumum' attribute specifies the lowest possible numeric
      ranking value (inclusive).  If not specified, the minimum value is
      considered to be 0.
   o  The 'maximum' attribute specifies the highest possible numeric
      ranking value (inclusive).  If not specified, no maximum value is
      considered to apply.

   An Atom feed element MAY contain any number of r:scheme elements.  A
   Feed MUST NOT contain more than one r:scheme element with the same
   id.








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     <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
           xmlns:r="http://purl.org/syndication/index/1.0">
       ...
       <r:scheme
         id="tag:example.org,2006:movie_reviews"
         xml:lang="en-us"
         label="Five Star Reviews"
         precision="0"
         significance="ascending"
         minimum="0"
         maximum="5" />
       ...
     </feed>

3.2.  The 'r:rank' element

   Entries within a feed MAY contain zero or more r:rank elements
   specifing a numeric ranking value within a given Ranking Domain.  An
   entry MUST NOT contain more than one r:rank element with the same
   combination of domain and scheme attribute values.
    rankingValue = element r:rank {
       atomCommonAttributes,
       attribute domain {IRI}?,
       attribute scheme {IRI}?,
       attribute label { text },
       (decimal}
     }

   The 'domain' attribute identifies the Ranking Domain.  See "Ranking
   Domain Scope" for details.

   The 'scheme' attribute identifies the Ranking Scheme.  If not
   specified, the scheme is assumed to be the Default Ranking Scheme.

   The 'label' attribute provides a language-sensitive, human readable
   label for the ranking value.

   The value of the r:rank is a decimal value conforming to the XML
   Schema decimal data type [W3C.REC-xmlschema-2-20041028].  The value
   MUST NOT contain any leading or trailing whitespace.
     <r:rank
       domain="http://example.org/movie_reviews"
       scheme="tag:example.com,2006:movie_reviews">3.5</r:rank>


4.  Ranking Domain Scope

   Ranking Domain's provide a logical mechanism used to associate a



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   numerically ranked set of resources.  Ranking Domains are identified
   by IRI's.

   Ranking Domains fall into one of three scopes:
   o  Feed Scope (known as the "Feed Ranking Domain")
   o  Document Scope (known as the "Document Ranking Domain")
   o  Domain Scope

   Numeric ranking values that do not specify a domain attribute are
   associated with the Feed Ranking Domain.  The IRI identity of the
   Feed Ranking Domain is the same as the containing feed element's
   atom:id element.

   A numeric ranking associated with the Feed Ranking Domain

     <r:rank scheme="tag:example.org,2006:movie_reviews">3.5</r:rank>

   The set of entries contained within the Feed Ranking Domain is
   limited to the set of entries contained within the Feed.

   Numeric rankings that specify a domain equal or equivalent to the
   Feed Document's Base URI are associated with the Document Ranking
   Domain.  The IRI identity of the Document Ranking Domain is the
   normalized form of the containing Feed Document's Base URI.

   A numeric ranking associated with the Feed Ranking Domain

     <r:rank
       domain=""
       scheme="tag:example.org,2006:movie_reviews">3.5</r:rank>

   The set of entries contained within the Document Ranking Domain is
   limited to the set entries contained within the Document identified
   by the Base URI.

   Numeric ranking values that specify any IRI value other than the Base
   URI of the containing document are associated with a Domain Scope.

   A numeric ranking associated with the Feed Ranking Domain

     <r:rank
       domain="http://www.example.org/movie_reviews"
       scheme="tag:example.org,2006:movie_reviews">3.5</r:rank>

   Domain Scoped SHOULD be considered to be open sets consistings of
   entries from any number of feeds.





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5.  Ranking Domain and Scheme Identifiers

   The IRI's identifying Ranking Domains and Ranking Schemes are subject
   to the same construction and comparison rules as the atom:id element.

   Comparison's of domain and scheme identifiers MUST be performed on a
   case-sensitive, character-by-character basis solely on the IRI
   character strings and MUST NOT rely on dereferencing the IRI's or
   URI's mapped from them.


6.  Processing Rankings

   Processing a Ranking Domain involves the following steps:
      Select the Ranking Scheme.
      Identify the Ranking Domain
      Identify the available set of entries containing numeric ranking
      values within the identified Ranking Domain using the selected
      Ranking Scheme.
      Remove from the set all entries whose rankings fall outside the
      minimum and maximum values set by the selected Ranking Scheme.
      Sort the remaining set of ranked entries according to the
      significance and precision of the numeric ranking as specified by
      the Ranking Scheme.


7.  Default Ranking Scheme

   Feeds MAY contain ranked entries that have no specified scheme.
   Software implementations MAY attempt to match such rankings to well-
   known schemes associated with the specified domain.  For instance, an
   online search engine may choose to define a ranking scheme that is
   reflective of the relevance of a given result to a search query;
   rather than require that a r:scheme element be included in every feed
   where the Ranking Scheme may be used, or declared in every 'r:rank'
   element, the search engine may separately publish its Ranking Scheme
   and associated Ranking Domain.

   A hypothetical search engine ranking using well-known scheme

     <r:rank domain="http://search.example.org/relevance">5</r:rank>

   If a Ranking Scheme cannot be resolved (e.g., no 'scheme' attribute
   on the r:rank element, no r:scheme with a matching 'id' attribute can
   be found and the domain is not well-known), the Default Ranking
   Scheme should be applied.





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   o  label = 'Default Ranking'
   o  significance = 'ascending'
   o  precision = unspecified
   o  minumum = 0
   o  maximum = unspecified


8.  Security Considerations

   There are no security considerations introduced by this
   specification.


9.  IANA Considerations

   There are no IANA considerations introduced by this specification.

10.  References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC4287]  Nottingham, M. and R. Sayre, "The Atom Syndication
              Format", RFC 4287, December 2005.

   [W3C.REC-xml-infoset-20040204]
              Tobin, R. and J. Cowan, "XML Information Set (Second
              Edition)", W3C REC REC-xml-infoset-20040204,
              February 2004.

   [W3C.REC-xml-names-19990114]
              Hollander, D., Bray, T., and A. Layman, "Namespaces in
              XML", W3C REC REC-xml-names-19990114, January 1999.

   [W3C.REC-xmlschema-2-20041028]
              Malhotra, A. and P. Biron, "XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes
              Second Edition", W3C REC REC-xmlschema-2-20041028,
              October 2004.













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Author's Address

   James M Snell


   Phone:
   Email: jasnell@gmail.com
   URI:   http://snellspace.com











































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Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).  This document is subject
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Acknowledgment

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
   Internet Society.




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