RE: "Annotation" and "annotation"


> > Rob, honestly, I don’t care much (or at all) about the abstract,
> 
> You keep saying that... but are you sure you don't care? :P

To put that in context, I was saying that I think the (current) document could cause confusion about what an annotation is, and that that issue goes beyond the issue of getting the abstract right.  Of course I care  about the abstract, but I agree with Rob, it is worth only so much wordsmithing effort.


> I really do care about the abstract, and about how the First Public Working
> Draft is structured and presented. Web developers and implementers will
> get their first impression of the Web Annotation WG from this spec, and their
> interest may either be piqued or dulled by it.

I don't disagree, but when I look at the beginning of a spec to try to figure out whether it is of interest to me, I almost always find the abstract lacking, and I have to go to the introduction.  But that's just me.   In my opinion, it is worth more effort to have a good introduction than a good abstract. (But both good is good.)


> > If there is intended to be a meaningful distinction between
> > “Annotation” and “annotation” – and I think it is a good idea –
> 
> This truly confuses me. Why would that be a good idea? If our aim is to
> produce an intuitive data model, why would we make distinctions that are
> fuzzy and counterintuitive?

Well, to me, the intuitive distinction is: an "annotation" the note you scribble in the margin of a page.   An "Annotation" is the web abstraction of an annotation.  It seems to me that this is both a useful and intuitive distinction. 


> Doesn't it make more sense to give the digital analog of an annotation
> as much verisimilitude to a traditional annotation as possible, so
> people understand it immediately?

Hey I'm all for verisimilitude. (Now that I looked it up.)    And I think the distinction we're talking about best accomplishes it.

Ray

Received on Friday, 14 November 2014 14:05:02 UTC