Sometimes having a lot of people working on Atom is great, because we get a much wider variety of experience and insight than a smaller group would have available to it. But all too often, it feels like trying to get the US government to move--too many checks and balances keep the status quo entrenched, because even if we agree that something's wrong, we can agree on how to change it, so it doesn't change.

The latest controversy that's been making the pot boil, but may not produce anything edible, is the question of whether the atom:summary element should be required, strongly encouraged, or entirely optional (MUST, SHOULD, or MAY, for those of you familiar with RFC 2119 terminology). The current draft of the Atom spec requires it under some circumstances. I believe we have consensus on the idea of dropping the MUST, but deciding between replacing it with SHOULD or MAY has been surprisingly contentious. I could live with either, but lean toward SHOULD if there's no atom:content element, or if the atom:content element is in a non-standard format (the standard formats I'm referring to being the three formats that have special status in Atom: plain text, HTML, and XHTML).

Sam Ruby has posted on this topic, and is requesting that people post comments saying what elements they feel are most important to have in a feed.

The stew is almost done. Let's hope it comes out edible.