LGP Schema
This will eventually house the schema for the Lonely Gamer Protocol. The LGP is a REST/XML protocol that allows services housing player data to share with one another. The goal is to make your profile much more mobile so other gamers can find you easier. Post your desire to game in one single place and have it syndicated all over the web. That’s the idea.
Overview
The LGP consists of two separate pieces, an XML schema detailing how data will be shared, and a REST protocol for retrieving the XML. A producer will need to implement both parts, while a consumer will simply need to parse and understand the XML.
XML Protocol
The Basics: Atom
At the core, an LGP feed is an Atom feed. Atom was designed from the start to be easily extensible, so the LGP is an Atom feed with some extra fields tacked on.
Anyone interested in producing or consuming an LGP feed should have a basic understanding of Atom feeds and their fields and meanings. There is a good overview at AtomEnabled.org.
Remember: To be a valid LGP feed, it must (at least) be a valid Atom feed. So, if you are a producer, make sure that your feed passes the W3C Feed Validator.
Atom fields and their meaning in LGP
Most of the atom fields are self-explanatory when used in an LGP feed, but in case there is some confusion, here is a quick overview of some that might be ambiguous:
<entry>
Each entry represents a single entity in the feed. In most cases this will represent a single gamer, but could also represent a group, a campaign, or perhaps even a local store. To disambiguate, use the lgp:type element.
<link> (required)
The link in an entry links to somewhere that an interested gamer can get more info. In most cases, this will link to the profile page of a gamer who registered on a participating site. However, it could also lead to the homepage of group or campaign. By following this link, someone should be able to easily find and contact the person or entity represented by the entry.
<georss:point> (strongly recommended)
Since the primary purpose of the LGP is helping people connect in the real world, providing geographical locations for each entry is strongly recommended. The geolocation info is encoded using the GeoRSS-Simple format. Don’t forget to add the georss namespace to your feed element. The W3C validator recognizes GeoRSS-Simple and will validate it.