Re: efficient retrieval of annotation bodies in Annotea

Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
> This optimisation assumes that the server has the bodies itself. This isn't
> (in a number of the cases I have played with) a valid assumption. So while I
> have no problem with allowing a query that includes "please give me all the
> annotation metadata and bodies that you have for FOO", I think requiring it
> would seriously restrict the usefulness of the protocol.
> 
> A simple example is to think of descriptions of images, where a user might
> make an annotation to provide an explicit linkage that can be automatically
> retrieved. This is a common accessibility use case (making an alternative
> representation available for a person who cannot clearly see or interpret the
> picture) where one might often expect to find the body of the annotation is
> an existing resource on the web, referred to rather than held by the annotea
> server.

Thanks for your reply -- and good point.  I admit I was thinking of what 
I, in my admittedly limited experience, believe will be a common 
scenario: text annotation bodies of relatively short length that are 
stored (or cached) by the same server that holds the annotation 
metadata.  You are right that many other scenarios are valid as well. 
But I'd like to see an option to return the bodies if the server has them.

-Mark

Received on Monday, 22 March 2004 12:52:39 UTC