Brian's patch is a decent try, but is not correct HTTP content-negotiation. I wrote a short note on this topic today for a different reason. For anyone unfamiliar: webmachine RESTs atop mochiweb. I suggest that couchdb follow basically the same pattern. If you don't want to use webmachine directly, feel free to import the conneg code in (choose_media_type/2) as it is Apache-2 licensed. -Justin