In ConceptualModel, a WellFormedEntry is defined by its attributes, namely author, permalink, a date, and content (which may be one URI resource, or a related set of URI resources), but there is no definition of what an entry is in relation to or to distinguish from other resources, like comments, feeds, sites, categories, trackbacks, stories or articles, photo albums, playlists, blogrolls, sections, archives, contact-info/about, etc. An entry could possibly be any of these things, once it appears as "an entry" of an online journal or weblog.
Journal or weblog record
SamRuby introduces WellFormedEntry by saying,
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"Authentic Voice of a Person. Reverse Chronological Order. On the web. These are essential characteristics of a online Journal or weblog.
"Given the statements above, a well formed log entry would contain at a minimum an author, a creationDate, and a permaLink. And, of course, content.
"As to content, a well formed log entry would have well formed content: in the case of HTML, this would include characters properly escaped, tags perfectly nested and closed.
entry
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Definition: a resource created or selected by a person to appear as a chronological record in an online journal, weblog or news service.
This definition, while precise, appears to exclude:
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resources commonly found in RSS feeds created by organizations or services that aren't "a person". For example, news organizations, stock tickers, cvs change reports, and Slashdot,
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comments or trackbacks, depending on your view of whether "person" refers to the creator(s) of the journal or weblog.
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This need to be clarified because CommentsAreEntries.
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other types of resources found on a journal or weblog that aren't part of the chronological record (yet).
In many ways, 'entry' appears to be an action or event that occurs to a resource more so than it is the resource itself.
Resources
entry
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Definition: A resource having a creator, identifier, date, content, and potentially other data.
online journal, weblog
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Definition: A collection of resources created or selected by a person day-to-day and appearing in chronological order.
Comment: Multiple people may participate in an online journal or weblog. The person selecting a resource may not be the creator of that resource.
news service
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Definition: A collection of resources created or selected by a person day-to-day and appearing in a priorotized, chronological or random order.
feed, channel:
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Definition: A collection of resources updated day-to-day and appearing in chronological order.
With these definitions, feeds and channels can contain ordered resources from any number of sources that are not just weblogs or journals. In the context of journal and weblog sites, the definition of entry is widened to allow tool developers to reuse the same structures for maintenance of far more resources in the weblog or journal.
It is possible, given this shift in understanding, that an 'entry' could be a general term used for any weblog or journal maintained item, or we could call that a metadata 'record':
entry, record
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Definition: An entry or record is some structured metadata about a resource, comprising one or more attributes and their associated values.
Note: Taken generally from the description of a metadata record in DublinCore, and specifically from Guidelines for implementing Dublin Core in XML, Section 2, Terminology.
For reference,
resource
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Definition: A resource can be anything that has identity. Familiar examples include an electronic document, an image, a service (e.g., "today's weather report for Los Angeles"), and a collection of other resources. Not all resources are network "retrievable"; e.g., human beings, corporations, and bound books in a library can also be considered resources. RFC2396
Contributors: KenMacLeod, NickChalko, AsbjornUlsberg