Annotating resources

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This system purpose means referenceable resources (a research paper, a blog post, a book, a TV show, etc), might be annotated for different intentions

  • Highlight, bookmark and recommend interesting parts
  • Point out flaws and points of disagreement
  • Provide further information

Features

Required Features

Recommended Features

Additional features

  • Centralization of a work's reference: If many instances of the same work exist (e.g. translations to different languages), we want some annotations to apply to the sibling instances (a refutation may be relevant regardless of the language). In order to achieve that annotations should reference a centralized address (instead of many arbitrary ones).
    • A centralized reference will provide some standarized information about the work, like a permanent and unique id we can refer to
  • Work verbatim copy / facsimile: Some works dissapear from the internet. If the annotations might be worthwhile, at least some low footprint version of the work (e.g. a plain text version of a document, or a transcription of an audio) to give the annotations context. Some intelectual property issues may arise.
  • Work Decomposition/Segmentation: Some works might need an index/decomposition of its contents (e.g. An enumeration of covered news in a TV news program).
    • It makes easier to find out if the work contains something we are searching, and go forward into it
    • Additional locations in the work (apart of endogenous labels/ids) might be convenient for anchoring annotations. These locations might be defined explicitly in the verbatim copy.
      • In case of a reorganization of the work, locations might be managed so the annotations will be relocated or marked as orphan
  • Annotation open semantics: There might be many types of annotations (visitors' comments, bookmarks/categorization, etc). Some annotations might be more relevant for a user (e.g. some objection over a dubious topic should be more interesting than a praise or follow-up). Some annotations might be intended for specific applications (e.g. to download a restricted content into a safe browser). Some annotations might link to external sites for specific functions (e.g. to vote/assess the quality of a content or annotation).
  • Features/Uses
    • Linkbase: Incoming links into a work might be registered as an annotation over the work's reference.
    • Search for further information on a topic
    • Search for existing comments on the work
      • So we don't take as certain something that is dubious
      • So we don't make redundant comments
    • We can know about alternate/complementary versions of the contents (transcripts, translations,etc)
      • We can contribute with these if there aren't

Examples of reviewing

  • A peer reviewing system for claimed additions to the "state of the art" in an academic body of knowledge (would be an alternative for other review processes lasting many months).
  • A political candidate debate might be indexed/dissectioned (define the position of relevant fragments, so it is possible to rapidly reach an specific part), and then populated with annotations providing reference to mentioned facts, giving refutation to flawed arguments, and links to fully developed arguments about each issue.

Recommended systems

Open comment/annotation systems like the extint Google Sidewiki or Third Voice seemed to be aiming to this target.
A bookmarking system like Delicious might allow comments on resources, but it is not straightforward to notice, and does not directly support fragment identifiers.
A wiki or hypertext reference about the resource might be made (but that's almost a completely handcrafted solution).
Some internet resources (like a blog or a forum) allow the visitors to enter and display comments, but that's limited, prone to bloating of irrelevant content, and might be useless with bigotred bloggers who won't stand their points of view questioned.

Critics

  • Comments stole away: Some bloggers critisized SideWiki as stealing away their comments, and forcing them to check yet another service to know what happens about their site. Some authors might miss the feedback posted in a third party service instead of submitted to them.
    • That being said, mature contributors will likely leave direct feedback. If it doesn't happen that way, it is likely that leaving critizising feedback is not that easy, or that such feedback is not likely to be so valuable.
  • Wikis: List of alternative versions and stuff about a work can be listed in a wiki page. Breakdown concepts can be enumerated. Verbatim copies of the content/transcript might be profusely commented with footnotes