More than directories now 

I've been looking around in some of the older OPML documentation. It seems that what used to be called OPML directories have evolved to become more than that now. I suppose you could call any OPML file a directory. But what if the file is a reading list? Calling it a directory would be confusing. Calling an OPML file a directory no matter what purpose it serves also would tend to limit a new user's concept of what OPML can do.

I'd be interested in hearing from Dave or anyone else who was into the format four, five, six years ago. I'm foggy on this and I'd like to understand which bits of the old docs we should think about incorporating into the new site, and which ideas about OPML may have grown or changed. It appears that back then the talk was mostly of 1) subscription lists, a la share your OPML, typically not rendered in HTML, and 2) directories which typically were rendered in HTML in Dave's world outline format.

This probably would have escaped my notice if it hadn't jumped out from the shrubbery and grabbed my ankle. It happened to happen that Dave was showing Scripting News in the world outline format this morning, not hours after I was posting about Ext337's desire to create a distributed directory last night. I was having trouble when writing the post in distinguishing between what seems to be two meanings of the term -- directory, the HTML output method, and directory, an instrument for looking things up.

Later: Just occurred to me that the 2000 use of the term directory may have referred to a file directory, like a folder.