W3C Annotation Working Group?

First, we hope that you've all had a safe and happy holidays!

Just before the break, a conversation was started in the W3C about possibly
using annotation as an experimental means of commenting on specifications
and drafts; this conversation also drew the attention on the more general
need for Web users to annotate web pages at large. This practical
requirement would tie in neatly with the ongoing work in the Digital
Publishing Interest Group and in the IDPF (http://idpf.org/) to flesh out
the use cases and application of the Open Annotation model in that field.

In order to take our annotation work to the next level, especially in the
publishing domain but across the board in terms of annotation being a
critical component of the Open Web Platform including browser-facing
aspects, a number of people feel that creating an Annotations Working Group
(WG) is both timely and important. This group would formalize and build on
the Open Annotation specification and data model, and would also explore
the browser side such as robust addressability, events, JavaScript APIs,
and so on; the precise details would be worked out over the next several
weeks in a proposed Annotations WG charter, within W3C's Information and
Knowledge (INK) domain. The result would be a one or more official
technical Recommendations (e.g., http://www.w3.org/TR/OpenAnnotation/)
which can only be created by a WG, not by a Community Group.

Ivan Herman and Doug Schepers would help guide the group in their
capacities at W3C, Ivan on the Semantic Web, Linked Data, and Digital
Publishing side, and Doug on the Web application, browser, and developer
outreach side.

What does this mean for the Community Group?  Firstly, all W3C members are
warmly and strongly encouraged to join the Working Group! Secondly, since
the WG will continue to conduct all its technical work in public, anyone
who is not affiliated with a member institution can continue to be part of
the discussion on the mailing list, and those who are able to actively
contribute (e.g. editing, writing tests, managing issues, or maintaining
support documents like use cases and requirements or developer
documentation) will be considered for Invited Expert status.

If you just want to keep track of what's going on, then there's no need to
do anything different. While the specification discussions would move to
the Working Group, we would keep the Open Annotation Community Group alive
as a platform to solicit broader feedback to issues arising in the WG, and
to provide a discussion forum for existing community members. Paolo and I
will take responsibility for acting as go-betweens for the CG and WG --
your input and support throughout the process so far has been extremely
valuable and greatly appreciated.  We will make sure there's clear
communication and close ties with this existing community.

Please let us know your thoughts on this idea!  While we think that a
formal TR will carry significantly more weight than the current community
draft, especially with larger industrial potential adopters, and that a
broader scope of work can strengthen the market, we want to make sure you
agree that the creation of a WG is the right thing to do at this stage. Do
you think this is the right step? Would you be interested in participating
in this proposed WG? Please give us your comments here!


Many thanks,

Rob and Paolo