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Annotation is now a web standard

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Re: Annotation is now a web standard

#111

Post by gaxun »

foxhedgehog wrote: post #108

I've been wanting to provide a high-fidelity many-to-many commenting system inside of a text editor or browser since I was in college. My thought was that if you could annotate something as complex as Shakespeare: http://imgur.com/FgsyAco then you could annotate legal documents, code, and other high-density texts as well. I've long felt that existing solutions fall down in a few ways: 1. UX -- this is a HARD UX probl…

> Really, what a robust commentary system needs is to map many comments to many units of text

This is actually built into this specification. From the Web Annotation Data Model [0]:

  - Annotations have 0 or more Bodies.
  - Annotations have 1 or more Targets.
So one "Annotation" object can have multiple bodies (descriptions) attached to multiple targets.

> 3. Relationships between comments

This sounds more like an implementation detail of a client than part of the protocol or data model put forth by the W3C group.

However, I believe this can kind of be done server-side with the Web Annotation Protocol [1]'s idea of Annotation Containers. Your server can map a single annotation to multiple containers. So perhaps you have an endpoint like `http://example.com/a/` and you want to arrange a hierarchy of comments. You could provide a filtered set of the annotations at `http://example.com/a/romeo/consonance/`, and similar endpoints.

So basically what I'm saying is it seems like the protocol here isn't going to get in your way, it's just incentive to use this particular model for storing and transferring your data.

[0]: https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/#web-annotation-princ...

[1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-protocol/#container-retriev...

Re: Annotation is now a web standard

#112

Post by grzm »

deevolution wrote: post #110
skybrian wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe 4chan will have fun with it for a while, and then everyone else will decide it's a cesspit and turn it off? I don't see anything in the proposal about how comments get moderated. In the meantime, we can keep using Hacker News.

Should the author have the privelage of moderating their comments? They could shave off all the comments that threaten the authors argument. Suddenly its become a single sided debate.

It's a complex subject, isn't it? I can see that possibly be an issue, and some might abuse it, just as others may use annotations in an abusive fashion as well. I can sympathize with sites wanting to some level of moderation, at least to remove abuse. How one does that is a challenge.

Re: Annotation is now a web standard

#113

Post by deevolution »

Demil wrote: post #81
jimmies wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fundamentally change how?

My guess is that It's going to improve the transparency and correctness of ideas. Every website will be like some sort of Reddit but more transparent because the publisher will not be able to censorship you. Also, cross identity. People will start having 1 public profile for every website. I can be Demi on hacker news, Reddit, Youtube, etc.

I like your thought except for having single identity. While its convenient, it could also be detrimental to the user. China is rolling out strict real name registration policies, for instance where you could become accountable for everything you say online.

Re: Annotation is now a web standard

#114

Post by perlgeek »

I'm curious to see how the legal front proceeds when this becomes more popular.

Somebody will post a slanderous comment on a company's website, the company will be very unhappy, and sue the comment provider for blending the comment into the company's website.

Is that free speech? Or is the comment not protected, because it's shown on the company's website, and thus should be under the company's control?

Re: Annotation is now a web standard

#115

Post by flexie »

nostrademons wrote: post #19

Is anyone using these? The blog post is put out by a company I've never heard of, and the credits listed on it include nobody who works on a browser, no major websites, and no comment-widget company. Historically, web standards where a committee gets together and decides how a feature is going to look without the buy-in of users or browser vendors have a very poor track record of adoption. The way actually-successful…

First, this would require that the browser vendors adopt the standard, right? How long time does that usually take? Is it a few months for Chrome/Firefox and a few years for Safari/IE, or how would that usually play out?

Re: Annotation is now a web standard

#117

Post by foxhedgehog »

gaxun wrote: post #111
foxhedgehog wrote: post #108

I've been wanting to provide a high-fidelity many-to-many commenting system inside of a text editor or browser since I was in college. My thought was that if you could annotate something as complex as Shakespeare: http://imgur.com/FgsyAco then you could annotate legal documents, code, and other high-density texts as well. I've long felt that existing solutions fall down in a few ways: 1. UX -- this is a HARD UX probl…

> Really, what a robust commentary system needs is to map many comments to many units of text This is actually built into this specification. From the Web Annotation Data Model [0]: - Annotations have 0 or more Bodies. - Annotations have 1 or more Targets. So one "Annotation" object can have multiple bodies (descriptions) attached to multiple targets. > 3. Relationships between comments This sounds more like an imple…

If the protocol supports these features, then that's great and I'd love to see it adopted.

Re: Annotation is now a web standard

#118

Post by Yaggo »

flexie wrote: post #115
nostrademons wrote: post #19

Is anyone using these? The blog post is put out by a company I've never heard of, and the credits listed on it include nobody who works on a browser, no major websites, and no comment-widget company. Historically, web standards where a committee gets together and decides how a feature is going to look without the buy-in of users or browser vendors have a very poor track record of adoption. The way actually-successful…

First, this would require that the browser vendors adopt the standard, right? How long time does that usually take? Is it a few months for Chrome/Firefox and a few years for Safari/IE, or how would that usually play out?

I wouldn't be so pessimistic. Safari has one year release cycle for major versions. IE isn't getting new features, but Edge is updated much more frequently than IE ever was.

Re: Annotation is now a web standard

#119

Post by tikl1 »

tyingq wrote: post #70
dragonwriter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just decouples commenting communities from publishers of the content being commented on, it doesn't change (increase or decrease) the work required or tools available for moderation. In effect, it just provides a standard structure for consumer-driven discovery of what already happens in off-site discussions that already happen (e.g., via sharing and dicussing the source on social media.)

It increases the discoverability significantly. The negative information or spam that's not on your site is suddenly...on your site. It's like making it mandatory for restaurants to have a live updating Yelp! review display scrolling at the front door. (assuming I understand the proposal correctly...I didn't see much control there for website owners)

I guess you'll have to choose wisely your annotations sources... If you see too much spam on 1 source, just unsubscribe. As said earlier, it's not so different of reddit/HN discuussions abouut content. The publisher may not even be aware of the discussion.
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