I'm trying to figure out a better way to inform my readers that people have commented on entries. The options seem to be
- Do nothing.
- Add comment-count to each entry in the feeds. I've done this before, and it gets ugly, since the reader ends up seeing multiple copies of the entire entry with the change being the number of comments posted.
- Add the comments to the end of each entry. This is even worse, since you get each entry plus every comment repeated when there are new comments.
- Create a separate feed for comments. Requires two subscriptions, which I think is asking too much.
- Put comments within my feeds, but as separate entries. I like this option, and I have created a test XML file (Atom format) that seems to work in my reader and in Bloglines. FeedValidator doesn't complain about it, though I don't know if it is perfectly formatted.
So, the big question: Is it kosher to intersperse full posts and comments within the same web feed (test XML)? Does it make matters worse? Will this confound matters when it comes to blog search engines?
Is there a better way to provide my full entries and comments to people who read via aggregators?