[Standards] Fwd: Proposed XMPP Extension: User Bleg

[Dave Cridland]

On Wed Jan 30 17:16:44 2008, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> Kevin Smith wrote:
> 
> >> Perhaps I confused things by calling it "bleg". Qian called it  
> "Q-and-A"
> >> before I changed the name to be more edgy.
> > > Well, my inclination is that if you're interested enough to  
> answer,
> > you're probably interested enough to see how it 'turns out', and  
> so
> > would want to see the notifications yourself. The spec as it is
> > probably only really covers the Q, and doesn't do much about the  
> A :)
> 
> Ah, I see. One way to handle that would be to make everyone (in your
> roster) a publisher at your bleg node. Another would be to publish  
> the
> replies you receive.

Another would be a MUC room with a topic set to the Q, as Kevin has  
already said. Yet another would be to point the potential answerer to  
a (HTTP) blog item asking the question in full. Or maybe either, or  
both, or something else.

BTW, I had to spend a while looking up what a bleg is, and found that:

a) I'm none the wiser.

b) I feel like a grumpy old man.

Luckily, the latter gives me full license to whimsical lecturing, so  
without further ado...

The stuff this dimly reminds me of is the Activity/Topic stuff that  
the OLPC people have been playing about with. Maybe we should examine  
that (again, Rob's already posted some stuff about it to the list),  
and see whether we can build something more generic and toolboxy out  
of this.

I vaguely like the idea of broadcasting to people who care that I'm  
engaged in some problem, and I'd welcome suggestions to this MUC room  
(where several people may already be discussing it). I like the  
notion of saying "I'm in an XMPP Council meeting - you can come and  
join in here", too.

I'm not sure this is the same thing as a "bleg", which I was certain  
was an expression indended to mimic retching or vomiting until I  
looked it up.

Dave.
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