MIME-type should be more specific

[tommy-carlier]

The MIME-type of JSONFeed is currently application/json. I believe it should be a bit more specific, like application/feed+json. RSS and Atom feeds also use application/rss+xml and application/atom+xml.

If you declare <link rel=alternate type="application/json" href="/feed.json"> in your HTML-page, you're telling the user agents that feed.json is just a JSON-representation of the current document, not necessarily a feed. If you use application/feed+json, you're telling them specifically that it's a feed that can be subscribed to.

[mstade]

Great of you to point this out @tommy-carlier. 👍

To the authors: please also note the media type registration procedures which states that media types in the standards tree must be either:

1. in the case of registrations associated with IETF specifications, approved directly by the IESG, or
2. registered by a recognized standards-related organization using the "Specification Required" IANA registration policy RFC5226 (which implies Expert Review).

[vitorgalvao]

For consideration by the authors, the (current) top comment on HN has a lengthy discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of this change. Most seem to concur the change should happen.

[ttepasse]

The W3C and WHAT WG versions of HTML overloaded rel=alternate just for the media types application/rss+xml and application/atom+xml. If one of these is not there it means alternative representation of the current document, not "there is a feed for this blog". If a new media type get's registered, someone should also petition WHATWG and W3C for its inclusion in the HTML specs.

(There was a proposal of rel=feed somewhere. That proposal seems dead except for some usage for the HTML feeds of the Indieweb movement. Maybe that's easier)

[danielcompton]

Relates to #7.

[aaronpk]

fwiw I just hit this problem trying to build in feed discovery into my reader. Because right now I have to look for application/json, my feed discovery is returning other URLs like peoples' oembed endpoints when looking for the jsonfeed, and then those URLs obviously fail to be subscribed to.

[manton]

Keeping #32 open for this. Thanks!