Even if this isn't a direct function of Slash, I think you could easily get this same end by writing
a perl/php/whatever script to spider the site, parse the articles' comments and generate .xml files.
What do you think of this?
ps: kudos on working in such an interesting field, glad to help ya wherever possible.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Matsakis" <mat...@ai...>
To: <sla...@li...>
Sent: Monday, 16 April, 2001 12:58
Subject: [Slashcode-development] Q: Can Slash discussions be served in a format other than HTML?
>
> Greetings,
>
> My name is Nick Matsakis, and I'm a graduate student at MIT's AI
> Laboratory. Lately, I've been working on some problems in information
> retrieval, and have become very interested in Slash-based sites as a
> potential source of data to try out some techniques.
>
> I've know that Slashdot (and others) serve lists of headlines in XML, and
> these are (presumably) the basis of many of the headline viewing programs
> out there. However, what I am interested in is the threaded comment
> discussions that each new article spawns. I've looked around a bit, and
> have not been able to find out whether or not Slash is able to provide
> third parties direct access to these discussions, rather than as HTML.
>
> Ideally, what I would want would be an XML-like document which lists each
> comment with a unique identifier, the identifier of the comment it is a
> response to, and the text of the comment. Other metadata (author, rating,
> subject) is useful but not necessary.
>
> I realize that this question is off-topic for a developers list, but it
> seemed like the most direct way to get an answer to the yes or no question
> of "is this possible?"
>
> Regards,
>
> Nick Matsakis
>
>
>
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