Subject: [Tools-discuss] Automatically tracking changes to pages on the IETF wiki?

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:36:10 -0800

Is there a way to subscribe to a mailing list / feed for all changes to a page on the IETF wiki? I would rather not have to write a scraper script that pulls the page history every few hours and diffs it.

--Paul Hoffman

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From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:40:38 -0800

> Is there a way to subscribe to a mailing list / feed for all changes to a page on the IETF wiki? I would rather not have to write a scraper script that pulls the page history every few hours and di…

I believe the IETF wiki is a large number of independent wikis.  If you mean 
specifically "the" IETF wiki, I'm not sure which one that is.  I don't see an 
indication of a singular wiki on <ietf.org>, but do note a:

    Wikis <http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/group/>

under Resources.

This is a basic point, which is why I'm pursuing it.  While it might be nice to 
have a "give me notices for any changes on any related wiki" I don't think it's 
available.  I think you have to sign up for notices for each wiki that you are 
interested in.

Then there's the question of how to sign up for notification.

Trac does support notification.  I used to have email notices for the 'outcomes' 
wiki but am not finding the sub-page on that wiki for subscribing.

In searching about track, I did find references to RSS notifications:

    <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/misc/outcomes/wiki/TracRss>

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

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From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:03:23 -0800

On Dec 12, 2011, at 9:40 AM, Dave CROCKER wrote:

> I believe the IETF wiki is a large number of independent wikis.  

Really? I thought they were all hosted off of trac.tools.ietf.org or wiki.tools.ietf.org. Apologies if I was not specific enough. I am asking about the wikis at trac|wiki.tools.ietf.org.

> While it might be nice to have a "give me notices for any changes on any related wiki" I don't think it's available.  I think you have to sign up for notices for each wiki that you are interested in.

That would be lovely. However...

> Trac does support notification.  I used to have email notices for the 'outcomes' wiki but am not finding the sub-page on that wiki for subscribing.
> 

Exactly. That page says "find the small RSS icon" for the page. I don't see them on any IETF wiki pages. Does that mean that there is no RSS feeds, or just that we need to know the URL for the link ourselves? If the latter, what is the recipe?

--Paul Hoffman

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:22:00 +0100

On 2011-12-12 19:03, Paul Hoffman wrote:
> ...

I think you'll find the RSS feed associated with the Trac timeline...

Best regards, Julian

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From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:35:37 -0800

> I think you'll find the RSS feed associated with the Trac timeline...

Ah! Exactly right. Thanks.

--Paul Hoffman

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From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:53:37 -0800

> I think you'll find the RSS feed associated with the Trac timeline...

Might be worth considering making it a bit easier for users to find...

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:42:33 +0100

> Might be worth considering making it a bit easier for users to find...

I've added a <link rel="alternate"/> RSS feed header to the wiki pages,
to make regular RSS discovery tools work.  This still uses the same
functionality which is available from the timeline/ page of each Trac
instance; in general that's where you should head for customized RSS
feeds from Trac, as Julian already indicated.

Best regards,

	Henrik

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From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:27:32 -0800

On 12/13/2011 4:42 AM, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> to make regular RSS discovery tools work.

Henrik,

Great!  I see it on the wg's home page, such as:

    <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/repute/>

I suggest also adding it to the wg's wiki base page, such as:

    <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/repute/trac/wiki>

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:34:52 +0100

Hi Dave,

On 2011-12-13 15:27 Dave CROCKER said:
>> I've added a<link rel="alternate"/>  RSS feed header to the wiki pages,

_That_ particular icon with rss link has been in place for ages :-) ,

>      <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/repute/trac/wiki>

here I can add an icon with a link to a feed for changes to the wiki
pages (the same URL as the <link rel="alternate"/> tag in the header)
-- is that what would be most helpful?  Or are you thinking of showing
the same link as on the status page, giving a feed of document submissions?

Best regards,

	Henrik

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From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:23:00 -0800

> and provides a feed of new document submissions for the WG; however:

oh.  crap.

There's no real way to know that it's focus is that limited, without inspecting 
the text of the link specification.  It's a rather subtle implication of the 
page it's on -- which by the way is titled "Status Pages" rather than 
"Documents" or somesuch.  All very confusing, even with coffee.

Worse, that page is really the home page for the working group.  It's not just a 
documents page.  So the existing RSS feed symbol really does need a label.

Also, this means that I didn't find the 'changes' RSS link, even when looking 
for it:

<http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/repute/trac/timeline?milestone=on&ticket=on&changeset=on&wiki=on&max=50&authors=&daysback=90&format=rss>

> the same link as on the status page, giving a feed of document submissions?

My specific suggestion is that there by a link to /wiki changes/ on the wg home 
page and on the wg wiki base page.  A link to i-d notifications is also fine, 
but quite separate and clearly needs to be clearly labeled.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker