For a while now, I've been trying to understand what role item descriptions found in the XML feed of your blog should play. Should they contain the full body of your post? A part of it? If so, how long should this part be?
An obvious (yet possibly, an over-simplistic) idea is: the description should be sufficient to let an average reader decide whether to read the full post or not. So, if I'm using an RSS aggregator but value my time enormously, this is what i might want.
A tougher question is, should the description be sufficient so as to let an average classifier successfully classify the entry? I have this feeling that the answer should be "yes" to this question also. It is all about automatic processing. And today, you can pretty much forget about having a bot clicking through to the "actual" page where the entry resides: parsing some of these pages is near impossible. Try Wired, for instance...
Anyone care to comment?
Posted by Dima Rekesh at July 12, 2004 03:57 PM | TrackBackI am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say, that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.
Posted by: vimax extender at October 7, 2004 11:35 AM