Syndication of Non-Public Entries

[janinedog]

Title

Syndication of Non-Public Entries

Short, concise description of the idea

Allow the partial syndication of non-public entries from other LiveJournal-based sites.

Full description of the idea

Currently, syndicated feeds only grab public entries from journals on other LiveJournal-based sites. This is (obviously) for security reasons, since friends lists can't be merged or checked between sites. However, I think it would be nice if, whenever a non-public (friends-only, group, or private--or, if it's easy to distinguish, then just friends-only and group) post is made to the journal that's being syndicated, the feed makes a post like the following:

[URL to protected entry]

A protected entry has been posted.

Then, people could go to the entry, and if they have an account on that site and are friended by the person, they can read the entry. This allows people who have accounts on other sites to makes friends-only posts without having to worry about their friends on LiveJournal (or wherever) missing the entries. Of course, they would need to have accounts on the site and be friended...but it's good for people who don't want to have to check friends pages for multiple websites.

Along with this, since some people who write entries may not want their feed to say when they post non-public, there could be an option added to update.bml that says "Do not syndicate this entry." It would be unchecked by default, and for any entry (even a public one) the poster could check it so that that entry isn't picked up by the syn feed.

An ordered list of benefits

Makes it easier for people who have friends on multiple journaling websites to read all of their friends' entries.

Allows people who post on other sites and who have syndicated feeds on LiveJournal to post friends-only without having to worry about their LiveJournal friends missing their entries.

An ordered list of problems/issues involved

Some people may think it's not really secure, though the option on update.bml should make that better.

I don't know if it's even possible. :)

An organized list, or a few short paragraphs detailing suggestions for implementation

Update the RSS code to allow syndication of protected entries (preferably not private ones, if that can be distinguished).

Add the option to update.bml to allow a person to choose for an entry to not be syndicated.

Along with that, it's probably best to add an option to editinfo.bml to allow a person to choose that none of their entries be syndicated, or that only their public entries be syndicated.