Abstract
This pace tries to define the semantics of atom:issued.
Status
Open
Conflicting paces
This pace is in conflict with the following paces:
This pace is a simpler version of:
Rationale
What atom:issued actually means, and what date goes into it is of high debate on atom-syntax. This pace tries to define an objective and formal meaning to it.
Proposal
Replace section 4.13.7 with:
4.13.7 "atom:issued" Element
The "atom:issued" element is a Date construct that indicates the date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the resource. atom:entry MUST contain an atom:issued element, but MUST NOT contain more than one.
The content of atom:issued MUST contain a time zone, if available.
atom:issued SHOULD be provided by the tool issuing the resource. It SHOULD NOT be provided by the author for other resons than publishing the resource in the future. For this reason, the entry MUST be witheld from publishing until the issue time, and then issued to its intended audience.
atom:issued MAY have a future date within a publishing process (e.g. if the resources in the feed is being reviewed by an editor), but MUST have a date less than or equal to "now" when published.
atom:issued MAY have a date from the past if the resource actually was issued in the past. Example:
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys was re-issued on the web in 2004, but was originally issued in book form in the 1900th century. atom:issued should in a such scenario be set to the first issued date, e.g. 1893-03-08.
If the atom:entry is modified or rewritten, atom:issued SHOULD NOT be altered to re-issue the entry. For this, atom:modified should be used instead. If the entry has changed significantly, it is to be considered a new entry, and SHOULD be published as thus with a new atom:id. Atom does not have a mechanism to relate different versions of an entry.
Impacts
This pace may impact the way tools handle the issued date.