RE: definition of Web Publication

Hi all,

We seem to be coming to something like consensus around working definitions of Web Publication. The idea of this exercise is not to agree on every single word but to make sure that we agree on basic concepts so that we are all having the same conversation. Please only comment if you disagree in principle not specifics of terminology.

Here is a summary:


  *   A Web Publication is an explicitly authored/created collection of one or more constituent resources, bound together through a manifest into a single logical work with a defined though not necessarily required reading order. The Web Publication is uniquely identifiable, presentable using Open Web Platform technologies, and available online or off. (from Greg/Matt)

(from Luc)

  *   A Web Publication is defined by a "boundary"
  *   The boundary is defined by a curator/author
  *   There is a creator
  *   It is more than organized. In the FRBR [1] sense, it brings the idea of a manifestation of a work.
  *   The creator's intent makes him or her create and/or choose content that represent for him/her an intellectual idea, the work.
  *   A Web Publication  is a possibility to manifest in digital form this work
Other notes:

  *   A Web Publication has an Identifier or "uniquely identifiable grouping"
  *   A WP, even not in the context of book, has a publication date. It doesn't exist before that date, and afterwards, it can be refered to as « published at » that date, along with other metadata like « by » for the creator/author.
  *   Requirement: possible to create bibliographic references
  *   Self-declaration of Web Publication-ness
  *   Offline-ability
How does this differ from a website? The manifest. What is a manifest?

  *   A manifest is structured information about a Web Publication, such as informative metadata and the default reading order of its primary constituents.  (Laurent)
  *   There will be an algorithm that, starting with a given URI (that of a manifest, for example) can locate all of the component resources reliably, which is not always true of a Web site. There is a predefined, default reading order for the resources - again this is not always true of Web sites that span multiple Web pages. It seems to be more about providing guarantees rather than about having unique features which only Web publications possess. (Jason)
To be determined:

  *   More specific definitions of boundaries
  *   Updating, revisions, versioning
[1] http://archive.ifla.org/archive/VII/s13/frbr/frbr_current_toc.htm

Tzviya Siegman
Information Standards Lead
Wiley
201-748-6884
tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>

From: George Kerscher [mailto:kerscher@montana.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2017 10:56 AM
To: 'Matt Garrish' <matt.garrish@gmail.com>; 'AUDRAIN LUC' <LAUDRAIN@hachette-livre.fr>; 'Avneesh Singh' <avneesh.sg@gmail.com>; 'Garth Conboy' <garth@google.com>; 'Laurent Le Meur' <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>
Cc: 'Leonard Rosenthol' <lrosenth@adobe.com>; 'Greg Albers' <GAlbers@getty.edu>; public-publ-wg@w3.org
Subject: RE: definition of Web Publication

I too like what is being expressed. One point:

I want to be able to create a bibliographic reference. I should be able to do this with confidence that the item will not disappear in the next update. Perhaps identifying the content that is part of the intrinsic publication is worth exploring.

Yes, yes, I know I am getting into details that we don't want to get into right now, but this is a +1 for documents that can change, but with some restrictions.

Best
George

From: Matt Garrish [mailto:matt.garrish@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2017 6:03 AM
To: 'AUDRAIN LUC' <LAUDRAIN@hachette-livre.fr<mailto:LAUDRAIN@hachette-livre.fr>>; 'Avneesh Singh' <avneesh.sg@gmail.com<mailto:avneesh.sg@gmail.com>>; 'Garth Conboy' <garth@google.com<mailto:garth@google.com>>; 'Laurent Le Meur' <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>>
Cc: 'Leonard Rosenthol' <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>>; 'Greg Albers' <GAlbers@getty.edu<mailto:GAlbers@getty.edu>>; public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>
Subject: RE: definition of Web Publication

A general +1 to everything you've said, Luc. I also prefer Greg's original wording. I only wonder if it would make sense to be even more explicit that we're creating a work out of the resources, and that's what makes a publication unique. For example:

A Web Publication is an explicitly authored/created collection of one or more constituent resources, bound together through a manifest into a single logical work with a defined though not necessarily required reading order. The Web Publication is uniquely identifiable, presentable using Open Web Platform technologies, and available online or off.

(As a side note, I hate acronyms in specifications and would prefer we avoid WP as a shorthand, even if we use it for simplicity in discussions.)

Matt

From: AUDRAIN LUC [mailto:LAUDRAIN@hachette-livre.fr]
Sent: July 26, 2017 4:32 AM
To: Avneesh Singh <avneesh.sg@gmail.com<mailto:avneesh.sg@gmail.com>>; Matt Garrish <matt.garrish@gmail.com<mailto:matt.garrish@gmail.com>>; 'Garth Conboy' <garth@google.com<mailto:garth@google.com>>; 'Laurent Le Meur' <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>>
Cc: 'Leonard Rosenthol' <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>>; 'Greg Albers' <GAlbers@getty.edu<mailto:GAlbers@getty.edu>>; public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: definition of Web Publication

Hi,

Boundedness/boudaries and creator intent: Work
This is where the library FRBR model brought us in IG to speak about « "manifested" (in the FRBR [frbr] sense) ».
There is a boundary around what has been chosen, curated, included in the WP by the creator/editor.

  *   I use creator and not author, so that we don't think it is only for books... IMO, it is also relevant for any document

  *   I think it is more than « organized ». In the « FRBR sense », it brings the idea of a manifestation of a work.

  *   The creator's intent makes him create and/or choose content that represent for him/her an intellectual idea, the work.
  *   A WP is a possibility to manifest in digital form this work

This confort the idea that a WP differs from a website by its manifest (that should reflect somehow the manifestation boundaries)
=> I support Greg's wording « A Web Publication (WP) is a[n explicitly authored/created] collection of one or more constituent resources, bound together »

Controlled updating:
We shouldn't limit these boundaries to « static content ».
I like here the idea brought by Jason « an algorithm »: WP content should be updatable under the control of a creator algorithm.
This kind of updating includes the dynamic view of the web in the boundaries of the WP.

Out of bounds: a generic link to a Web page that may disappear in time is IMO
Within bounds: an internal process included by the creator in a WP making a call to a controlled set of data from a reliable source

=> the WP Definition should somehow reflects this essential processable nature of WP, perhaps in adding that algorithm are among the primary resources?

Best,
Luc

De : Avneesh Singh <avneesh.sg@gmail.com<mailto:avneesh.sg@gmail.com>>
Date : mercredi 26 juillet 2017 à 05:57
À : Matt Garrish <matt.garrish@gmail.com<mailto:matt.garrish@gmail.com>>, 'Garth Conboy' <garth@google.com<mailto:garth@google.com>>, 'Laurent Le Meur' <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>>
Cc : 'Leonard Rosenthol' <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>>, 'Greg Albers' <GAlbers@getty.edu<mailto:GAlbers@getty.edu>>, "public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>" <public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>>
Objet : Re: definition of Web Publication
Renvoyer - De : <public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>>
Renvoyer - Date : mercredi 26 juillet 2017 à 05:57

We have developed a lot of usecases on basis of current stage of publishing industry, which is good.
At the same time, the publishing industry is likely to evolve with time, and soon we may see the publications that are updated on weekly or even daily basis.
I see the following differences between publications and webpages.
1. Publisher defined Boundaries and reading order for at least primary resources.
2. Well defined information about major and minor updates.
3. well defined metadata (point 2 is also related to it).
4. Online as well as offline access.

With regards
Avneesh
From: Matt Garrish
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2017 05:09
To: 'Garth Conboy' ; 'Laurent Le Meur'
Cc: 'Leonard Rosenthol' ; 'Greg Albers' ; public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>
Subject: RE: definition of Web Publication

The phrase "intentional curation" sounds more like what web publications enable than a characteristic of the content, although I appreciate what is being sought with it.

And leaving out boundedness from the definition while it was heavily emphasized in the vision document doesn't make a lot of sense to me. What makes publications unique from web pages is the idea that they represent a bounded work, even if the bound is a single document. If that's not true, then can we really call these "web publications" or are they just "identifiable document sets on the web"?

Matt

From: Garth Conboy [mailto:garth@google.com]
Sent: July 25, 2017 5:12 PM
To: Laurent Le Meur <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>>
Cc: Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>>; Greg Albers <GAlbers@getty.edu<mailto:GAlbers@getty.edu>>; public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: definition of Web Publication

And to a certain extent these "bounds" could also be the part of the publication that is published on the publication date, and can be expected not to change without a new publication.  This lack of change after publication is key to me (or at least some way to get back to the "originally published content") -- signatures may play a role here.

Best,
   Garth

On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 1:34 PM, Laurent Le Meur <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>> wrote:
The bounds of a WP are IMO the resources that will be packaged when a PWP is created. Take the exemple of an html page (a primary resource of a WP) containing a video hosted on YouTube. The video content will stay out of the boundaries of the PWP. We can package some constituents of a WP, not all of them.

Laurent

Le 25 juil. 2017 à 22:20, Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>> a écrit :

I don't understand how a user would ever know (or care) about the "bounds" of a WP.  Can you give an example?

At its simplest, a PWP is a WP that has been packaged up into a single physical container of content (ala EPUB).  Beyond that, we still have lots of work to do to understand how (if at all) it would differ from a WP.

On the "states" issue, we spent a *lot* of time in the IG trying to use that states model and when we presented it to the rest of the W3C it was too confusing for many as it's a very complex grid.   It's also not clear whether we actually need all the various differences in that grid given many things going on with the OWP itself...

Leonard

From: Greg Albers <GAlbers@getty.edu<mailto:GAlbers@getty.edu>>
Date: Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 3:30 PM
To: Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>>
Cc: Laurent Le Meur <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>>, "public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>" <public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: definition of Web Publication

Thanks all. Glad to be here and I think, now that I gave the w3c permission to archive my posts, they'll show up here normally.

Leonard, good thoughts, thanks! On this though:


  *   "bound" vs. organized:  The word bound, to me, feels more like packaging - and so I think we should avoid it for now.  But it's a good word for when we get to PWP

I would argue that a Web Publication, whether packaged or not, must have a sense of boundedness. That those boundaries and a users implicit or explicit understanding of them are a key to exactly what distinguishes a web publication from a website. Particularly from a user's (reader's) perspective, whereas yes, I think from a user agent's perspective, it is the manifest. That makes a lot of sense to me.

A related question I had for you all was around the distinction between a WP and a PWP. To me packaging is a state of a WP not a separate entity from it. And even in our charter it states the PWP as something that we might define and spec out but that we might not depending on activities elsewhere in the w3c. Shouldn't then our definition of a WP encompass its states more holistically. Online v offline, packaged v not packaged, with everything v only with essential resources, etc...?

Thanks,
Greg



Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 25, 2017, at 10:54 AM, Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>> wrote:
Greg had an excellent point about curation, so let me try to add that in using a term that we've been trying out here (so feedback on that welcome too)

A Web Publication (WP) is an intentionally curated collection of one or more Web resources organized together through a manifest and presented to users using Open Web Platform technologies.

There were some other things in the suggestion that I didn't take and I'd like to explain

  *   "bound" vs. organized:  The word bound, to me, feels more like packaging - and so I think we should avoid it for now.  But it's a good word for when we get to PWP
  *   "uniquely identifiable grouping": As we have discussed, identification of a WP is a separate issue so that doesn't belong in the definition
  *   "reading order": Having this in the manifest definition, I saw no need to duplicate it in the WP definition.

Leonard

From: Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>>
Date: Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 1:34 PM
To: Laurent Le Meur <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>>, "public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>" <public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: definition of Web Publication
Resent-From: <public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>>
Resent-Date: Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 1:34 PM

Laurent - good rewrites, but let me play with it a bit...

Do we really need the middle sentence? It doesn't say anything useful (IMO).   The first and third, however are good.   We can then put it all together as:

A Web Publication (WP) is a collection of one or more Web resources organized together through a manifest and presented to users using Open Web Platform technologies.

Now to apply some simplification to the Manifest definition:

A manifest is structured information about a Web Publication, such as informative metadata and the default reading order of its primary constituents.

I'm not thrilled with that since it's still not clear to me if we want all that stuff (metadata + resources + reading order + ....) in a single "manifest" *or* we will end up with multiple ones (but even then, it may still conceptually be a manifest).

Thoughts?

Leonard

From: Laurent Le Meur <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>>
Date: Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 11:38 AM
To: "public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>" <public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>>
Cc: W3C Publishing Working Group <public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: definition of Web Publication
Resent-From: <public-publ-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-publ-wg@w3.org>>
Resent-Date: Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 11:38 AM

The current definition is facing a large set of comments. From these comments, I tried a variant of Matt's proposal:

A Web Publication (WP) is a collection of one or more Web resources organized together through a manifest. The content of a Web Publication can take a wide variety of forms, from formal artistic and intellectual works to ad hoc documents and memos. Web Publications are presented to end-users using Open Web Platform technologies.

A manifest is the structured information necessary for the proper identification and description of a Web Publication, plus the default reading order of its primary constituents.

Laurent