Add comment image to RSS feed

[zvi]

Title:
Add comment image to RSS feed

Area:
RSS, playing well with others, comments

Summary:
Add the comment count image to the RSS feed.

Description:
Crossposted entries now include the comment count, which is great for individuals crossposting. However, communities can't crosspost, and we can't crosspost to non-LJ/DW sites yet. However, lots of things can grab our RSS feeds, and, for those reading via RSS, the comment count would be helpful to display as well. It would give some idea if there was a lively conversation someone should click over to, which is especially important for anyone whose RSS feed is for full text, which discourages people from clicking back to Dreamwidth.

The drawback would be increased bandwidth. I suppose there's a sort of loss of privacy maybe? I don't know.

Poll #1469 Add comment image to RSS feed

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
20 (64.5%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (6.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
2 (6.5%)

(I have no opinion)
7 (22.6%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[cesy]

Privacy should be covered because the comment count is visible to anyone who can see the entry, so the same settings would apply as for locked entries already.

Are there existing standards for linking to comments on RSS feeds and/or displaying the comment count? If there are, we should use those, but otherwise, yes, the comment count would be good. Would it display as a new entry in someone's RSS reader every time the comment count changes, or would it just be a change to the existing entry?

[ratcreature]

I less than enthused about the idea because for me the comment image always shows as an image placeholder because it has no proper sizes so my friendspage always treats them as it would huge images and it has no real alt text either. I don't want that on even more posts.

[pauamma]

More directly appropriate, I think, would be a comment count item (for RSS2) or entry (for Atom) field, so the aggregator can act on it (eg, mark the entry if the field changed since the last check). I couldn't find an obviously suitable field in the core RSS2 or Atom specs, but maybe there's one in an extension?