Hey,

Pete Kaminski just alerted me to the effort and ideas behind something called ThreadsML http://www.quicktopic.com/7/H/rhSrjkWgjnvRq - but I can't find anything since Nov. '02. Discussions also seem to have gone silent on the RSS-DEV list about this idea.

I've been able to find this defintiive statement by Steve Yost:
http://www.quicktopic.com/7/H/rhSrjkWgjnvRq?m1=66&mN=66

and an early article:
http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-jun17-01.html

a RDF proposal:
http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/threading/

and an excellent analysis by Ben Hammersley:
http://rss.benhammersley.com/archives/000035.html

there's even a domain - which has been abandoned:
http://www.threadsml.org/

I assume a lot of these thoughts and insights have been beaten to death and discussed (via QuickTopics of course) and that everyone is just sick of it by now. But now that we're about to embark on a whole new thing - thanks to Matt and Paolo with ENT (Easy News Topics.) Having topics in an RSS feed and compatible with RDF and XTM is a great step forward.

Whether it be a multimedia conversation (as I theorized), a traditional discussion forum (use.net, Brainstorms, Yahoo Groups, Slashdot, iVillage, whatever) or something like what SocialText is developing.....

.... having an interchange standard for threaded discussions - forums - would be killer!

We're building new kinds of tools - to create new kinds of communities and man, could we use an interchange standard for threads.

- Marc

P.S. BOAF at Emerging Tech?